


Freefall

by Satan (THEfanofstuff)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Biphobia, Deaf Clint Barton, Fluff, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Homophobia, How Do I Tag, Misgendering, Multi, No one is cishet, Nonbinary Character, Not Beta Read, Past Character Death, Peter Parker Angst, Peter Parker Has Anxiety, Peter Parker Has Issues, Tony Stark Has Issues, Trans Character, Trans Male Character, Trans Michelle Jones, Trans Peter Parker, Transphobia, Triggers, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, and drinking by other characters, but also very few explicit relationships bc I'm here for my homeboy, but very few het, by that I mean binding improperly and ignoring health issues, deadnaming, fair warning, ftm character, i will try not to spoil but i care for your health more, i wish lmao, ok i'll stop now, pls pls let me know if you have specific ones you need addressed, the only fanon ship im doing is thruce, the rest will only be cannon, they will be labelled at the start of each chapter, watch out, well most are cis
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-05
Updated: 2019-07-06
Packaged: 2020-04-08 05:02:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 40,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19100233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/THEfanofstuff/pseuds/Satan
Summary: "...I'll talk to the kid about it when I meet him. How old, exactly, is he?”“Noted, boss. And Peter Parker is 15 years old, he turned 15 two weeks and one day ago.”15??? Holy shit. Tony was expecting at least 18, given that the test was initially for college kids. 'I can work with this. Everything's fine. It's ok.'Or:Featuring a team that isn't completely dysfunctional when having family disputes, a trans spider boi that's tired and wants to go home, an inventor who low-key wants children, a badass Pepper Potts, and quite a few medical issues. Oh, and don't forget the Meme Scream Team group chat, for light comedic humor.





	1. The Contest(Of Wills?)

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, I don't normally post what I write anymore bc I never finish anything, but apparently, my way of dealing with grief is to throw myself headfirst into writing, and I've gotten this fic up to 25k already, which is massive for me, when you consider it's only been like 2 weeks. Anyways, so I've got the first three chapters pretty solid, so I decided to take the risk and post the first one up here, see what y'all thought of it. 
> 
> PLEASE READ, IMPORTANT WARNINGS  
> Just a warning ahead of time, there will be some pretty damn serious topics addressed in here, such as transphobia and homophobia(not from anyone on the team or anything, but still). There will be deadnaming, misgendering, bullying, and slurs. There will be some major violence towards the MCs, as they are superheroes, but also with everyday life.  
> And a large part of the conflict will have to do with Peter's T not working after the bite from as scientifically accurate a standpoint as I can make it(as in; it's not because he "burns through it because of his metabolism" that a lot of people do. That's not how hormones work.).  
> There will be mentions of Child Abuse, as literally half the Avengers were abused as children. Minor fat-shaming, bc Flash is the ultimate dick and deserves no life or future.  
> Mental Health Issues are addressed and dealt with, such as depression, anxiety, dysphoria, and PTSD. There will also be unlabeled issues, such as symptoms of ADHD and sensory processing issues because these fuckers are so screwed up when it comes to superpowers. I'm basically making them suffer because I'm evil and enjoy suffering. Also, scientific accuracy is high-key my kink.

Tony didn’t know that this program was going to actually help him, and bring the most positive person he will know into his life. He just knew that Pepper thought it would be good press, and a good way to bring smart minds into the company, and a waste of his time. They could easily have their head designers work on this shit, but Pepper wanted him involved.  _ The press, Tony. _ As if the press ever saw anything he did as good, anyway. So, Tony took a little electrical circuit problem split it into pieces like a puzzle, transformed the pieces into code, and scrambled them up. He had Pepper angle the target audience at college students, but anyone in the lower levels of education was certainly welcome to try. He thought it would be fairly easy, the only rules were you couldn’t have more than two people work on an attempt at once, and the attempt must be completed without pauses longer than 15 minutes at a time(a maximum of two.) If they were longer, or the person attempted a third, they would be unable to complete it and the puzzle would rescramble and reset. 

He sent it out on a secure website, having FRIDAY scramble and delete parts of each attempt to download the puzzle to work on it offline. 

It took two weeks for anyone to crack it, the deadline being three, and the response was… unexpected. For one, the person had taken the code and reassembled the puzzle… upside-down, with the initial wiring issue  _ fixed _ . And for two, it had taken the person only two hours on what FRIDAY scanned to be a typical Dell laptop, at least five years old. 

When he asked, FRIDAY informed him that there had been only one previous attempt, two days previous, lasting 2.5 hours, that had seemingly been nowhere near the correct puzzle when the session abruptly ended. He’d had FRIDAY set up to log all successful attempts as recorded, to see what happened and figure out the person’s process of thinking to tell where to best put them. Of course, that section ended up blank for two weeks, until now. 

He watched as the person started off slow, just going through and sectioning off the obvious blocks of code that had been scrambled. Unlike most people attempting it, this kid hadn’t tried rewriting or continuing lines of code that had been cut through the middle, just lining them up to be arranged as they should have been. It took the person about 45 minutes to arrange all the pieces into place, but they hadn’t connected them, and there was about a five-minute pause as they seemed to just read through the code. They were finally putting together what the actual puzzle was. The coding picked up after that, as they took full lines of code and rearranged them, as one would wires in a particularly complicated circuit. They created a bypass from the expected result as they rerouted the entire system to be upside down, which Tony had seen in the finished product. They were seeing through the code in the same way Tony did, rather than assuming the code itself as the issue. By the end, the circuit had a high feedback rate and would cave under Iron-man level power, but for almost everything else was a completely valid and rather ingenious way to address the problem. 

“Well, shit,” Tony muttered, minimizing the screen as Pepper walked in. “Hey Pep, honey, what’s going on?”

“FRIDAY told me. You actually got someone to solve the puzzle? I thought you designed it to be impossible.” She seemed cross, for some reason.  _ Better clarify. Not me, not related to me. _

“I didn’t get someone to do it, they did it. I had nothing to do with it, though I am a little relieved to know there are actually people who know things, I was beginning to wonder if the world really would be lost after I went down.” His rambling didn’t help him, probably because he just quipped about his death and he knew she didn’t like any discussion about him dying.  _ Oops, distraction time. _ “However, whoever they are, they’re well above average. I’m talking almost as smart as me. Almost. They turned the entire problem on its head, Pep! I would have just rewritten it, but they took what was there and hijacked it into something better. We need this person, they’d be formidable if they had the ambition to go against us.”

Pepper leaned against the desk next to him, gazing at him as he stubbornly continued examining the circuit, as if it could give him information on the kid’s identity. 

“Do you think it could be Harley?”  _ I wish. Oh, god, I wish, but no. _

“No, I uh. I already checked. The kid in question is in New York, somewhere in the city, actually, and on an old Dell laptop. That’s not- Harley wouldn’t- He’d be more obvious, I think.” Tony bit his lip, ignoring the disappointment he could feel circling his chest and pulling it tight. Short of hacking government records, he couldn’t actually find Harley. He’d never been given a last name, nor a parent’s name, and then when he’d tried to reach out to them at the address they’d been at the following summer, they’d apparently moved. Pepper had said something about a mysterious billionaire just placing a bunch of equipment in their barn after endangering their son’s life freaking a parent out, but Tony had dismissed the claim. They obviously would have gotten an outright restraining order if that were the issue. Pepper had been adamant, though, and hadn’t let him hack the government servers just to find some kid he’d gotten weirdly attached to. 

Maybe that was part of this whole campaign, to find someone Tony would actually attach to in a healthy manner( _ haha yeah right, good luck with that, Pepper _ ). Then again, she hadn’t mentioned anything on what would happen for the winners besides a position at Stark Industries. Maybe she really had just wanted a normal puzzle, for normal people( _ bit too late for that _ ). Well, either way, this kid wasn’t Harley, but they were special. 

“We’ve still got five days, right Pep?” He turned his head towards her a little, not quite looking, but acknowledging. 

“Yeah. We can’t close the contest early, That would be considered unfair.”  _ And there’s still a chance Harley could make it. He could solve this, if he could make a potato gun at ten. Come on, pipsqueak _ . 

“Right. Well, I’ll find out who this kid is, and we’ll go from there. I kinda want to make a big deal out of this, you know? Let the kid know they’re special, or something, especially if no one else makes it through.”  _ Especially if Harley doesn’t make it through. _

“Getting invested, huh? This kid must have done something pretty impressive. Alright, I’ll back off. I’m happy you didn’t make it unsolvable. That would have ruined the campaign.” She kissed his cheek in goodbye, and despite the doubt in her words, Tony felt like he had done something right, for once. 

“FRIDAY, get me access to this kid’s webcam, and then run facial recognition on everything within the last 24 hours.” He ordered, sitting back as she worked.

“I’m sorry, boss. I was able to access the webcam, but the laptop does not have any records within the last 24 hours to be scanned. It appears the system’s software prevents me from starting any recording without external influence, as well. I will be able to remain actively running facial scans until we get results, though.”  _ Damn Dell software so fucking behind the times, preventing government hacking and identity theft. That’s… actually a little advanced for them. What the hell? Maybe it’s the kid’s influence.  _

“Okay, don’t worry about that, FRIDAY, umm, place a tracker on the device’s location, instead. Keep data of the next 24 hours, and we can see the pattern and extract a location from there.” 

“On it, boss. If the laptop becomes unusually active, I shall run facial recognition software, if that’s okay with you.” 

“You got it, Fri.” He sighed, and then got back to work reading the latest version of the Accords Ross had sent over. He’d been forced to cave on his extreme views, with Tony’s political power with the military alone, as well as the entire team united and protesting against the fine print he had been hoping to hide, but that was currently the only thing the team was united about, and he still had half the Senate and a third of the House behind his original contract. Tony could only hope his and Rhodey’s favors for the President got them more pull there than it had in the past. 

He winced when he saw the entire clause about acting without permission even within the city they were based in, which was so vaguely worded that he could be jailed and fined for using the suit to go get McDonald's. 

He double-tapped that clause to add it to the other 67 marked items that they needed to go over and clarify. Many of them were the same damn things that hadn’t been resolved the last time, but the last version had had 89 issues in all, by his count. Every member of the team was going through it and identifying issues they found and they discussed them after everyone was done. The only exception was Rhodey, who was technically a US government weapon, and thus not a vigilante. Clint was going over them with Natasha and Sam respectively, as they were the only two with the patience to keep him on the task. 

He was nearing the end of the document with 73 errors when a news alert for Spider-man popped up. He’d been tracking the hero for a little while now, fascinated by the low level of heroism the kid displayed(and he had to be a kid, there was no way he was older than 20, max). FRIDAY had noted strange energy signals going off, and had been able to pull up shaky camera footage of the kid fighting some robbers in a bank, one of his most daring escapades yet. And then things got… weird. Tony watched as the kid very narrowly dodged what looked like a laser beam, which then swung wild and exploded the store across the street. 

“Shit, shit. That’s not normal, I’m not even sure that’s possible with human technology. FRIDAY, run analysis.” He muttered, bringing the video up to full screen and pulling up that street corner on the satellite map. The entire area was coated in an unknown energy signature, and he watched as Spider-man ran across the street to save the people in the building that got exploded, leaving the robbers(the ones who were conscious, anyway) free to go. Tony set FRIDAY to tracking them and sent that information to the police with the condition that he wanted to take a look at their devices. Then he turned his attention back to the kid, watching as he evacuated everyone from the building, no remaining life signatures, right as it collapsed. 

The kid apparently didn’t get the memo, however. He went back towards the building, looking like he was calling for someone. 

“He doesn’t know there’s no one else there. He’s gonna get himself killed, or caught. He’s definitely going to get blamed. Shit. FRIDAY, send Damage Control, give them the footage of the alien weapons. That’s not going to be good.” Tony sat up, groaning as his back cracked. “Time to get to work. Fri, send me a tracker with his location if he moves. I’m gonna pay him a visit. He might need it. Oh, and pull up the materials and blueprints for the Spider-Suit I was working on, He needs an upgrade so he doesn’t continue to run into empty, damaged buildings.” 

  
  
  


Peter was upset. No, scratch that. He was distraught. The whole week had been awful, starting with the fact that his cycle had come back, and Flash at school being an absolute dick. So when he finally came upon something he could stop while patrolling, he’d almost been excited. He should have known better, with his Parker luck. 

The robbery had seemed normal enough, other than the hilarious aspect that the robbers were wearing Avengers masks(that was some good quality memeage right there, it’s a shame they couldn’t stop to take a picture so he could show Ned that he’d met the Avengers). Then they pulled out a gun that wasn’t a gun at all, and Peter started to feel like he’d brought fists to an alien technology fight. 

The explosion had been the last straw. He couldn’t use his Spider-Sense to tell if anyone was in danger because the entire building was  _ dangerdangerDANGER _ . So when it collapsed before he was sure everyone was out, he panicked. Everything was going down, and he had to make sure people were still in there. After five minutes of wandering through rubble calling out names, though, he heard sirens in the distance, and he couldn’t stay any longer. He ran, knowing that he couldn’t save everyone, but damn did it feel awful. His anxiety spiked as he got further away, and his senses got sharper, louder. He had let the robbers get away, too. God, he was a failure. He couldn’t stop hyperventilating, going into an anxiety attack as the city became tooloud _ tooloudTOOLOUD.  _ He rolled to a stop on a roof, curling up into a ball with his arms around his head. He undid the side clasps of his binder under his clothes, making it easier to breathe, but the city just  _ wouldn’t go away _ . 

“Hey, kid- holy shit, are you alright? FRIDAY, run diagnostics. Come on kid, I just got here, we were going to have a chat.” The voice was familiar, for some reason, as was the whine and clunk as whatever it was stopped on the roof, but Peter couldn’t think, couldn’t process with too much going on. Then hands, only slightly warmer but felt like burning, were turning him over, checking him for injuries. He quickly redid the clasps, before letting his hands fall to his sides, trying to squint to identify who was with him. Even the night sky was too bright, but he had to figure it out- _ HOLY SHIT THAT’S TONY STARK _ . 

Peter started, scrambling away with wide eyes as Tony reached for his mask to make sure he was breathing. 

“Hey, hey. Same side, I’m just checking on you, Underoos. You seem to be having an anxiety attack. It’s normal, but they’re scary, just. Let me help you.” He had his hands up, moving slowly now that he knew Peter was conscious and at least somewhat aware of his surroundings. 

“You can’t- can’t look. I know what anxietttttty attacks are. I’m not an idd-d-diot.” 

Tony chuckled at that, nodding slightly. “Yeah, I bet not, kiddo, but you’re wearing a onesie to go fight crime, so I don’t quite know what to think.”

“What- what do you want? And not all of us are billl-llionaires, you know.” Peter hated how high his voice was, hated that it got higher under duress, hated that he had the  _ hiccups _ of all things. 

“I can help with that. The wearing the onesie thing, not the billionaire thing. And I came to make sure you were okay, for the most part. Those robbers weren’t carrying normal shit, you know?” The man sat down, powering down his suit so he could lean against the legs. He didn’t even have the gall to look cold, even though it was freezing out here. 

“What? How did you know about that? And… what?” 

“I’m in the midst of making you a new suit, to make sure you don’t get stuck in a situation like this again. That sucked, kid, and it’s gonna look really bad on the news, at least for you. You should really leave those guys well enough alone, I’ll handle them, but on the off chance you find yourself in a similar situation, you’re going to need more protection than just some pajamas.”

“No.” Now, Peter hadn’t really thought it through. He probably should have, especially given the man’s eyebrows had shot to his hairline. But it was true. He couldn’t have his identity, his situation, revealed.

“No? What do you mean, no?”

“I have family, people to protect. I can’t let anyone know my identity.” Yeah, a grand total of one family member and one friend, but Peter wasn’t about to let Tony Stark know that. 

“Okay… What if I offered it with conditions? As in, you’re allowed to keep your identity secret, but you should come meet the team?” Tony ran a hand through his hair, about as agitated as Peter had ever seen him in all his years of admiration. 

“Wait, why would I need to meet the team? Have I done something wrong? You’re not going to force me into doing anything, are you?” That was a stupid question if Peter had ever asked one.  _ Yes, Spider-man, I’m going to force you to do things like reveal your identity to the Avengers and tap dance on the ceiling. _ Nobody admits they’re going to make you do something.

“No, no, nothing like that. Well, actually, sort of, yeah. There’s this thing making its rounds, it’s called the Accords? You might have heard of it. But if you don’t give your input and/or sell yourself to the government, what you’re doing will soon become highly illegal. As in, felony-level, take your voting rights and even citizenship away, lock you up type of felony. The Avengers are working on getting it amended so it doesn’t mean we all get thrown into jail for going out to Starbucks, but it’s slow going, and as you have a different perspective as a definitely more low-level hero, you could have some useful insight.” 

...oh.

“I… suppose. Is that it? One meeting? And you won’t make me reveal my identity or take off the mask?” 

Tony looked at him, really looked at him, and there was something kind of sad in his eyes. 

“No, kid. I won’t. I’ll even protect you from the others. I get it. Though if you’ve got really good suggestions, we may ask you to come back, but it will never be a forced thing.”

Peter nodded, barely noticing that he was so sidetracked his anxiety had settled. “Okay. I’ll do it, then. When and where?”

“Avengers Tower, and Saturday at 11 work for you?”

“...yeah, that should be good.”

“Okay, cool. I’ll get you the suit on Friday, then? I can’t have you embarrassing me in front of all my superhero buddies, now can I? I’ll even install a voice modulator in there for you, if you want.”  _ Dude, that’s so cool. Wait until I tell Ned. _

“Dude, that would be- I mean, sorry, Mr. Stark, sir. That would be really cool of you. When exactly would we meet? And where?” 

“I’m thinking, here, and around 11 pm? Or would you need it to be earlier, so you can test out the suit? How about 9?” Peter was suddenly thankful they were only two blocks from his school because he got lost easily, especially if it was somewhere he’d never been before. His sensory issues found everything too hard to deal with, especially in unusual environments.

“Yeah, yeah, 9 works. Thank you so much, sir. I’ll come up with all sorts of ideas for the meeting, and see you then.” He backed up, so excited that he fell off the roof. “aaAAAAHH-oof. I’m okay!” Tony, who had scrambled to the edge to see him, closed his eyes in what looked like irritation.

“Come on, kid. I’ve got heart problems, don’t do that to me.”    
“Sorry, sir. I’m okay, though, really. I’ve had way worse. I’m just gonna go, now.” Peter awkwardly turned away and started running, jumping when he reached a good speed and slinging a web to fly away. 

Except because the universe hates him, he was out of webs. So it just looked like he had literally jumped for joy.  _ Uncle Ben, I’ll be coming to join you soon, because I’m dying of embarrassment. _

...fuck, maybe don’t think about that. 

It was pretty easy to make it back to his apartment, sneaking in through the window. He dropped onto the bed after he closed the door, quickly getting changed. Aunt May had late shifts all week, and wouldn’t be back until 11, but Peter didn’t want to get into the habit of being comfortable at home in the suit. That was just a recipe for disaster.

He unclipped his binder and immediately threw on his Iron Man tank top, ignoring the bulge as he wriggled under the covers. He was exhausted, and today sucked, but he got to meet Tony Stark! And he didn’t even embarrass himself or freak out or fanboy! He pulled out his phone, texting Ned about it. He laughed about Ned’s complete freakout, doing a little himself. 

He still hadn’t told his best friend he’d solved the puzzle. He’d gone over to Ned’s about a week and a half into it, and they had played around with it, just figuring out what it was denoting. There hadn’t been any rules on what it was, or how to solve it, or limitations. The criteria for solving it wasn’t even posted, and so the two just played around with the code, finding parts where it fit together and parts where it didn’t, but it had fit in his head after they’d stopped. He’d played around with it mentally for a bit, looking at it in lines, and then sections, and then chunks until he’d finally pulled it up again two days later. He was surprised when it pulled up and looked… like a puzzle, instead of bits of code. This was supposed to be Ned’s thing. Which was partially why he hadn’t told his friend he’d solved it. They didn’t know if anyone else had solved it, Stark Industries hadn’t posted anything about it other than reminders that “You still have two weeks to try your hand!” and “The contest ends in a week!”. 

Peter had a feeling it wasn’t too many people. Flash was bragging about getting it, but when people asked about it, he got kinda flustered, instead poking fun at the fact that they hadn’t, so Peter was pretty sure he was just faking it. 

So yeah. He didn't want it to be a public thing if only like 20 people in the US were admitted(and yeah, Mr. Stark had kept it within the US, for citizenship purposes.) Still, Ned deserved to know. Of course, he couldn't tell him how to do it. There was a form at the end that made him sign and say he'd keep the secret a secret. 

So he told him. Peter told him about how he'd done it, and how he couldn't tell him what he'd done bc of the nondisclosure thing, and how he was really nervous because “what if he did it wrong or something?” 

Ned, while surprised, was super excited about it. He'd also taken a look and attempted to run decoding software on it, but it hadn't budged. It was simply a puzzle within the code, and Peter wanted so badly to tell him, but he couldn't. Ned reassured him that it was alright, he didn't need to. He was smart enough to figure it out, so he should get the opportunity. Ned's focus was simply elsewhere. 

When they finally settled down around 12:30, ready to go to bed, Peter stared up at the ceiling, listening to the sounds of Aunt May bumbling around and trying to be quiet. It sounded like home. 

  
  
  


Tony spent the rest of the night going over the Accords and absently running over the designs for the suit he was making the Spider-Boy. His aversion to being identified was somewhat annoying, but if he was anywhere near as young as Tony thought he was, it was probably a good thing. And he had to admit, the kid was a little adorable. The little jump for joy halfway down the street certainly was. 

The suit wouldn't be too complicated, given the time frame. If he had longer or didn't have as much going on, he would have added more, but as it was, he figured the kid just needed some scanners, better head protection, a fabric that didn't impede his ability to stick to things, so really thin, but reinforced and insulated because that kid had been  _ cold _ when Tony had touched him last night. Maybe an AI. Safety features, like a parachute and a maximum weight exposed. The parachute would deploy automatically if the kid was wearing the suit at extremely high altitudes and the weight maximum would just notify Tony, but it was good to have precautions. And he had to ask him about those webs he made, he was pretty sure they were biological in nature, but that thought kinda made Tony cringe a little. Something about using bodily fluids to prevent bad guys from escaping just wasn't his jam. He'd ask the kid about it, but for now, left the wrists bare. Maybe he should think about using that fabric in development, the bulletproof one. It would help, from what he could tell, but as of right now it would more likely limit his mobility. 

Now for the body design… he would probably be better off with something form-fitting, but only when activated. Don't forget extra padding in the crotch. As awkward as the kid might find it, it'll save his future children. Tony was really just looking out for him. 

He didn't end up sleeping that night, too busy between that and the documents Pepper wanted him to go over. She wanted an answer as to what to do with the kid(s) who passed the test. He couldn't really give it to her, if only because it depended on the kid and how the kid thought. The one who'd already passed the test was really smart, and if they were tolerable as a person, Tony would absolutely want a high up intern status, maybe someone in R&D focused specifically on working with him on his more… unconventional projects. The kid might be the perfect person. However, if the kid was stuck up or snobbish, he'd probably shove them into R&D's current intern population and forget about them. He didn't have the time to work around a kid's ego just because they were smart, even if he'd been the exact same way. 

Tony kept working, getting the suit mostly done by the end of Wednesday afternoon, when FRIDAY gave him a notification. 

“Boss, I've run both facial recognition and tracking simulations, and have found the identity of the child who cracked the puzzle. I… am not sure of the child's gender, as they possess an unusually androgynous face, but the school system identified them as Karen Parker. The file goes on to add that the child goes by Peter instead.” 

“Child… okay. Peter it is. Fri, we're gonna go male, given that the kid's name preference is male. I'll talk to the kid about it when I meet him. How old, exactly, is he?” 

“Noted, boss. And Peter Parker is 15 years old, he turned 15 two weeks and one day ago.” 

15??? Holy shit. Tony was expecting at least 18, given that the test was initially for college kids.  _ I can work with this. Everything's fine. It's ok.  _

“Show me pictures, videos, anything. Only from the past year, though.” Tony added the last part, realizing that the kid had probably started transitioning later, given that he hadn't changed his name legally. There wasn't much to go on. At first, the kid had cute selfies on an Instagram page with another kid (Ned Leeds, also 15, apparently Peter's only friend, given he's the only one who shows up.) The kid's aunt and uncle showed up in one picture, but there were none of any parents or anything. There weren't really words to describe the kid except  _...cute.  _ And Tony knew the kid might find that offensive or something, but the kid wasn't here. And that smile as he stared at his friend, or at the camera… Tony didn't think he had ever smiled like that when he was that young. The Instagram account stopped about five months ago without warning, and the only things after that were some badly taken photos on someone's phone and the school picture, which was absolutely shit, as expected.

He worked through the next few days, actually sleeping Wednesday night because Pepper made him, but not for long. He just had to get down all the ideas for the suit that he could. He'd committed himself to it, so now he had to go all out. He was a perfectionist, after all. The others kept harassing him on when he was going to finish reviewing this version of the Accords so they could talk about it, but he pushed them off till Saturday, claiming work with Pepper kept him busy. None of the Avengers wanted to mess with Pepper, so he was safe, at least for a while. 

Friday night came quickly, and after a moment of quick thinking, he pulled up a copy of the current version of the Accords for the kid to go over. He didn't know if he would or not, the thing was 320 pages of fine print and the kid only had 14 hours, but he wanted to give the kid the option. He reached the rooftop at about 9:05, but Spidey was already there and had been facing him for as long as he was in view, which was pretty impressive. He'd even worn one of his more discreet suits, not that he had ever been good at discreet. 

“Hey, Spider-Kid. How's it hanging?” The nickname gave the kid pause, enough so that he seemed to glare at him(Tony really couldn't tell, what with his suit being so… bad). 

“It's… it's hanging. You know. Is that-is that an old person saying? I've only heard that in movies.”  _...okay, wow. What even is this kid. _

“No, it's not an old person saying, have you ever been to California, kid?” 

“Oh, so it's a West coast saying. And you said it because I'm a spider and hang… wow okay. Yeah. I've ruined it haven't I?” This kid…

“Yes. Yes, you have. Anyways, here's your suit, and a copy of the Accords in case you wanted to go over them before the meeting. Keep whatever questions you have now on a separate list if you do because an outsider's perspective is going to be needed. And, umm, I programmed myself as the emergency contact in there, in case things go wrong, like, I dunno, a building collapses on you or something. So uh, try not to get into too much trouble, but if you do I've got your back.” Tony stated, shifting uncomfortably and pretending that it wasn't as big a deal to him as it was. 

“Woah… this is so COOL! Oh, uh sorry, that was loud, but yeah man! I'll definitely try not to have anything like that happen, I don't want to like, waste your time or anything, but thank you!” The kid was practically vibrating with the need to put it on, and Tony could tell he wasn't going to do it with him there, so he backed up a bit, getting ready to take off. 

“I'm glad you like it, kid. Umm, the suit will contact my AI if you damage it enough to need repairs, which you can help with, if you want. Oh, and before I go, I wanted to ask about the webs? Are those biological, or did you actually mix them?” The kid seemed to freeze at this question, not expecting it. 

“Oh, I have a, uh, a friend who makes them. I mean, I can produce my own, but they’re like actual spider webs, so uh. Pretty weak. He's pretty cool.” Definitely wasn't expecting that. 

“That's some pretty good work right there. Tell your friend that if he ever wants a job at Stark Industries, he can contact me and I'll set him up. Toodledo.” Tony backed up, saluting the kid, and took off. On his way back to the Tower, Tony got another notification. Someone else had solved the puzzle. Three days left and the second person had actually come in. “Okay, Fri, pull up the specs. What’ve we got?” 

“The test was completed in 1 hour, 58 minutes, and 7 seconds. It matches the parameters you set for completion, as well as the first of the answers you entered as a possibility.”

“Woah, wait, what? The first answer took me 20 minutes, and that was knowing the puzzle. You’re telling me it took the person less than 2 hours to do that?” Tony almost stopped flying in favor of hovering mid-air and arguing with his AI, but while it was something he had done before, it wasn’t something that made Pepper happy, mostly because Iron Man just hovering over an intersection for five minutes without saying a word freaked people out. 

“Indeed, boss. I’ve run the analyses you asked for previously on this child too, and the child’s name is Harley Keener. He is currently going to the same school as Peter Parker and is 14 years old. His birthday is coming up in a month and a half, shall I mark it on the Calendar for you?” 

“Yeah, sure. And add Parker’s birthday too, while you’re at it.” He agreed, not entirely focused on the conversation anymore.  _ It’s Harley. It’s actually Harley. I don’t know what I’m doing, I’ve never made it this far before.  _ “Text Pepper, tell her we’ve found Harley. Or rather, he’s found us.”

“On it, boss.”

He didn’t get any sleep that night. 

  
  


Peter didn’t get any sleep that night either. He went home quickly, only having about an hour before May got home, and he really wanted to try on the suit. The introduction of the suit’s AI was a bit of a scare, but she ran over all the protocols going on, confirming that there was no data collection that would endanger him or expose his identity without other matching his vitals to those of Peter’s in a side-by-side comparison, and anyone who had Peter’s vitals would already know that he wasn’t normal.

He shoved the suit under his blankets when May got home, pulling out the absolute unit of a packet that Mr. Stark had given him to review. He sectioned off the packet into parts and sections based on what each section addressed and when it changed the subject. Just doing that took almost an hour, but it allowed him to easily identify which parts he could just scan and which parts he would want to look closer at. 

He pulled on the mask after he was sure May was asleep, and she helped section off different parts and actually enhanced and enlarged some of the fine print. With her help, he’d scanned through the packet in a little under 5 hours, then took a break to wake up a bit, before going back to the pages and places that he’d marked under 3 categories; concerned, alarmed, and horrified. There ended up being several items in each one, with a tendency to skew right. There were even issues that didn’t show up, such as how the bill affected minors, and what it meant for citizenship, and what the procedure would be if the person wanted to retire, or if they didn’t want to be a vigilante in the first place, hadn’t been using their powers in a consistent enough manner to warrant this bill. 

He noticed a continuing theme of a lack of autonomy, one of the basic human rights, and added that to his previous list. By then it was close to 3 AM, and he still had homework he wanted to get done. Plus, talking with the suit lady was fun and helped him avoid addressing the growing dysphoria that was his chest. He finished his chem work pretty quickly, glad he’d stocked up on web fluid after that literal disaster of a meeting with Tony Stark. The chemicals were all there, they just needed to be combined carefully. He could do that at 4:30 in the morning, right? 

 

Yeah, maybe not. He’d managed to avoid wasting or spilling any of it, but he almost dropped it three times, and he couldn’t seem to get his head to stay straight. It kept tilting slightly as he worked, messing him up and frustrating him. 

He managed to finally get it into the special vials and in the web shooters at about 7 am, napping for two hours before the suit lady woke him in time to pull the mask off so May didn’t see it when she walked in. He napped for another half an hour before waking up in a panic, trying to remember how he planned to sneak away from May. He ended up just using Ned as an excuse, going out so she didn’t have to listen to him as she rested. 10-hour shifts all week were brutal on her.

He texted Ned, letting him know that hypothetically, he was at Ned’s place instead of, you know, literally at Avengers Tower with Tony Stark. And then he got changed in the alley behind his apartment and swung over to the Tower, only to hit the window. He’d forgotten to ask Mr. Stark how to get into the building, and where, exactly, they were meeting.    
“Mr. Stark is on the sixtieth floor, west side. The room has windows that are openable, so I’m sure you could just get them to open the windows. Alternatively, you could call Mr. Stark-” The suit lady stated, but Peter was already doing the first option, running up the side of the building and circling around to find the darkened windows that the suit lady told him contained Mr. Stark and a few other people, and knocked. He was only 10 minutes early, thankfully, but that was better than being late. 

The look Mr. Stark gave him when he opened the window told him otherwise. He climbed in, attaching to the nearest surface(which happened to be the ceiling of the conference room) and stood, ready to make his apologies, only to find himself face to face with Tony’s sternum. Right, the room must be too small to stand upside down in. 

“Sorry, Mr. Stark, sir. I just didn’t want to be late.” Peter would have rambled, continuing that he didn’t know how to contact the man outside of emergencies and it seemed like a valid point at the time. However, this wasn’t Peter, this was Spider-Man, and Peter had been Spider-Man long enough to have a tangible difference between them. Spider-Man would validate his reasoning only if prompted and was otherwise quite confident in his actions. 

“Seriously? You couldn’t have just called? You’ve got to go all Spider-Kid and make the building think I’m being attacked? Wow. Talk about dramatic.” Mr. Stark moved away enough for Peter to drop to the ground safely and roll upright, facing the rest of the room. 

“I’m sorry that I made you think I was attacking Mr. Stark, FRIDAY. And I seem to remember a certain Stark Expo where you literally skydived into the arena in the Iron Man suit, even though none of the people waiting for you were able to see you until you basically landed. I don’t know, Mr. Stark, that seems a bit more dramatic, don’t you think?” The cool, confident mask of Spider-Man was on, and it was so much easier than the anxious mess Peter would have been. Plus, he’d just roasted Mr. Stark in front of half the Avengers. 

“Ohoho, I’m surprised you’re old enough to know about that, kid.” Peter couldn’t tell, but was that… relief in Tony’s eyes? 

“Please, it was only five years ago. I’m also old enough to know that only really old people say ‘Ohoho’.” Peter mocked, grinning up at the man. He jumped into the chair that he was sure Mr. Stark had been sitting in, sitting on the back as it spun around. To his defense, it seemed all the other chairs were going to be taken or were already. 

“That’s my chair, you little smartass. Yours is over there, by Natasha.” He pointed across the way and over one, in between Natasha and Bruce. Bruce wasn’t there yet, but Natasha was, and she was absolutely enthralled with this snarky little spider. Tony had to know she would be, otherwise, why would he put her next to him? Oh, this would be fun. 

“Or, you know, I could just hang from the ceiling. I do my best thinking upside down.” Peter offered, easily standing on Tony’s seat and frog-hopping over to his own. He actually sat this time, reaching back to get the packet that he had webbed to his back. It ruined the front page, but no one ever cared about the front page, so he was fine. Completing that with a pen that he webbed from across the table, he was ready to begin. 

 

“Underoos, why don’t you introduce yourself? I’m always telling you to make connections, and these guys are pretty cool to grade schoolers like you.”

“Mr. Stark, this is only our third conversation, and the other two were barely long enough to talk about this meeting. I think it’s safe to say that you haven’t once told me to ‘make connections.’ But it  _ is _ a good thing to do.” He turned to his left, offering his hand to Natasha. 

“Hi! Nice to meet you, I’m Spider-Man.” She stared him down, raising an eyebrow at his continued mask and his brashness, but eventually, she took his hand. He matched her strength, not wanting to hurt her, but not wanting to be limp either. 

“You know I could kill you 30 different ways right now?” She was a bit intimidating, and his spider-sense was going off at a hum, detecting danger, but he ignored it. 

“I have no doubt. You are the Black Widow, after all. However, I’m completely banking on the fact that you have no reason to kill me and also I may come off as cute because Mr. Stark keeps calling me a child.” He grinned, taking his hand back before she could break it, and offering it to Clint, who’d been in silent stitches as soon as he’d identified that Spiderman was not a threat. He was already on thin ice after he fried Tony’s favorite sentient toaster earlier, so he didn’t want to anger the man more by laughing at the kid’s quips. “Hi, I’m Spider-Man.”

“I-I think you mean Spider-Kid. Maybe Spider-Boy. You’re what, 13? 14? You’re also hilarious though, so I have a feeling we’re going to get along. Clint Barton, Hawkeye.” He shook Peter’s hand, then sat back, occasionally shaking as he remembered what the kid had said. 

“Yeah, yeah. Make fun of the new guy. Laugh it up. Ha, ha.” Peter rolled his eyes good-naturedly, looking towards the last person in the room. “You’re Wanda, right? My name’s P-Spider-Boy. Spider-Boy, yup. Apparently, puberty hasn’t hit yet.” She had remained silent the entire time, watching him a little fearfully. He’d hoped that his confidence or self-deprecating jokes would get through to her, but that ended up being a nope. She just leaned more towards Stark when he offered his hand. 

“You… are far too young. You should not be here, tiny spider.” She spoke slowly, and the room quieted, the others falling from their high moods at her omission. Peter took his hand back slowly, instinctively bringing his knees up to crouch on the chair instead as he shook his own hand without breaking eye contact. 

“Sometimes we don’t really get a choice.” He spoke entirely too seriously, for his voice took that moment as the moment to squeal instead of maintain his relatively deep voice. He immediately shut up, snarling as he brought a hand up to his neck. He knew that his T was being reversed. He’d known for a while, but it didn’t make the process any less excruciating. He felt utterly helpless, trapped. He pressed his back against the back of the chair and tried to control his breathing, not wanting another anxiety attack so soon, much less in front of the Avengers. Thankfully, in walked a distraction. 

_ God, I’m so bi. _ Steve Rogers had started on a beard, and Peter Parker, young bi disaster, did not know how to handle it. His brain short-circuited, and he saw Natasha smirk out of the corner of his eye. 

And then, right behind him, came Bruce Banner. And Peter actually squeaked. He was sure his spider-eyes were extremely wide right now, and He was also sure that Mr. Stark and Natasha were laughing at him, not the random tension in the room, but  _ holyshitit’sBruceBanner _ .

Bruce looked uncomfortable when he saw the kid sitting(in the loosest definition of the word) next to his spot and staring at him with wide eyes. He didn’t know who he was, but he was probably afraid of the Hulk. So he was completely taken by surprise when the kid scrambled  _ toward  _ him, instead of away, holding out a hand like it was a lifeline and completely ignoring and climbing over the other chairs in his way, saying “ohmygod, you're BRUCE BANNER!!! I'm SUCH a fan of your work, it's so interesting and really revolutionizes the field of radiology, holy  _ shit _ !” Bruce just stared back at the kid, absentmindedly shaking the hand offered when the kid got to the last chair in the row and was perched on the back of it.

“Language, son. Also, who the hell let a kid in here?” Steve looked around at the other 3, confused as all fuck. 

“Steve, meet Spider-Boy. He's sitting in on the meeting today as a personal favor for me, but also because it directly affects his future so I figured he should have a say in it. Why don't you all sit down?” Tony had stood, drawing everyone's attention, and Peter suddenly realized he was still holding Doctor Banner's hand. He dropped it as nonchalantly as he could, walking across the chairs back to his seat, and patting the one next to him expectantly at Bruce. 

“Careful, kid, you might make him cry.” Sam quipped, finally getting tired of waiting for Bruce to move. He guided him to his seat and let Peter make him sit down. “I think he might actually be in shock.” 

“What? Why? What happened? Dr. Banner, who hurt you? I'll fight them.” Peter declared, definitely not making his nerdy science crush obvious at all. Definitely. He hopped up, grabbing a blanket from the corner of the room, and wrapping it around the good doctor. “We shouldn't have moved him if he's in shock. Are you sure we should do this now? Maybe we should wait.” 

“... I'm fine, kid. Thanks, though.” Bruce saw the water in front of him and chugged it to get rid of his dry throat. 

“Okay, if you're sure. So are we missing anyone? I wanted to start off with a couple of base questions because y'all seem to be missing some key points.” Both Tony and Steve started at that, surprised. 

“Well, go ahead, kid, what's up?” Tony asked, glancing at the others. 

“Well, first of all, I wanted to ask why there wasn't a section addressing a difference in due process for minors? And also what vigilantism would look like as a minor, because you guys are literally half just really badass normal people who can do karate and spy stuff, so like. Would that make all child black belts who regularly fight vigilantes? No, right? So would that mean vigilantism for minors would be strictly related to minors with superpowers or a mutation? But then that seems a bit unfair, so this whole thing is kinda confusing. I think we should start on the whole smaller scale, see what it would mean for me now. Because I have no doubt this Secretary Ross dude does not give a shit if we're minors or not, given that he doesn't even consider us human with basic human rights. That's the real fight, here, is getting a bill that allows you guys basic human rights, isn't it? And if that is the goal, there would be a difference in how we treat minors.” 

 

Silence. 

So much silence. You could hear a pin drop. 

“Oooor not, never mind, carry on.” Peter sat back, tucking his legs in front on him securely. His chest hurt from anxiety and binding, and he really wanted to be on the ceiling right now. The ceiling didn't threaten to come down on him if he was already on it. 

“FRIDAY, did you note all of that? Those were extremely good points. I’m going to have to bring that up in front of the Senate and House in our talks on Friday. And you’re right, kid. That is the main point of issue. The real question for us is how are we morally going to police these individuals while maintaining their basic human rights.” Tony broke the silence, legitimately shocked. He hadn’t thought the kid was that smart, to be honest, he didn’t even make his own web shooters. But the kid had proved him wrong, both with this and with recognizing Bruce’s work. “By the way, kid, did you not sleep at all last night? I didn’t expect you to go through the packet in detail, I thought you would have just skimmed it.” 

“Nah, I got about 2 hours in, it’s fine, Mr. Stark.” The kid waved away his concern, blinking slowly, one eye at a time. He’d have gotten away with it if it hadn’t been for the mask amplifying the movement. 

“Jesus, kid. Anyways, thoughts, guys? Definition of vigilantism doesn’t work with minors, so perhaps, if Ross wants to make it all the same, it won’t work with adults. Is that an angle you think we can work, Steve?” Tony turned to the man, who was sitting at the head of the table. 

“Maybe. We’d have to establish that it would be in the case of child athletes who stand up to crime, though. We’d have to gather proof of potentially superhuman ability and/or a continuous pattern and specific examples. On the other hand, it doesn’t have to be crime-stopping. Look at Deadpool, we could consider athletically gifted kids who continually do crimes. Either way, there needs to be a significant number of kids interfering with the process of justice. Besides that, I do think we should give minors the right to a lighter sentence, though Ross will claim they were acting as adults. Perhaps an appeal to the parental side of the legislature. That would make him lose ground.” Steve brainstormed ideas, bouncing them off of Tony and Natasha. Sam pitched in occasionally, and Peter gave his opinion whenever he thought they needed it, but for the most part, he cross-referenced the old documents with the notes he was taking on the changes. 

“Hey, Suit Lady, can you interface with FRIDAY? I just want to add what I’ve got up on display, and send it to Mr. Stark after the meeting is over.” Natasha turned her head to look at the kid when he whispered, but didn’t comment. 

Peter watched as the notification came up on Tony’s sunglasses, tilted his head and shrugged at the asking question in Tony’s right eyebrow. Tony seemed to take this as an acceptable response, because he nodded to Friday, bringing up the document pages in a hologram behind Steve, highlighting the section he was reading off and the notes he was making off to the side. Tony pulled out his phone and added all previous notes he’d had on as well, and the column of notes expanded three times the document’s size. Steve paused when he noticed the others looking behind him, glancing at the hologram and rolling his eyes at Tony before continuing. Natasha gave the little spider a fistbump for Tony, a bit cheered up at how happy that made the kid. The meeting ended up lasting 3 hours, only stopping after Tony declared he couldn’t focus anymore until he got some food, and Clint groaned with relief. He’d given up paying attention over an hour ago, trying to balance a pen on his nose, and then when he accomplished that, tried to take a nap. Tony kept turning up the sound on his hearing aids remotely every time, though, so he couldn’t fall asleep. 

Peter jumped from his seat, attaching to the ceiling and crawling around to relieve energy that had been building. Tony had given him a fidget cube halfway through the meeting when he’d noticed that the kid was getting frustrated with the inability to focus, and it had helped, but he still felt trapped in one place. 

“Hey, Spider-kid, want to join us for lunch? Promise we won’t recognize you based on your prepubescent facial hair.” Tony quipped, standing and stretching. Peter winced when he heard at least seven bones crack in his back. 

“I eat a lot. Like a lot. You sure you can afford to have me over?” Peter turned, scaling down a web upside-down to be face to face with the man. 

Tony smirked, looking at the kid incredulously. “Seriously, if we can handle Captain Popsicle over there eating like he wants to make up for all seventy years frozen at once, we can handle you, pipsqueak. Besides, I’m literally a billionaire. Do you forget who you’re talking to all the time? Or is it just me?”

“I don’t know, Mr. Stark, I keep forgetting you’re so old and get confused as to who the old man in front of me is.” 

“If anyone’s old around here, it’s Spangles and Sparkles over there. You keep calling me old, I’m gonna take the suit away.” Tony pointed at the kid, shaking his finger. 

“Hey, don’t bring me into this. I like your spirit, kid. Where are you from?” Steve asked, going over to shake the kid’s hand, as he hadn’t gotten to earlier. 

“Queens.” The kid started, then snapped his mouth shut, eyeing Tony suspiciously. 

“Brooklynn. And don’t worry about it, Queens, I should have figured that out anyways, given that you are commonly known as the hero of Queens.” Steve diffused the conversation, noticing the glance at Tony. He frowned at the man, but Tony just shook his head, expression closing off in the way that it usually did when something hurt him. Peter didn’t notice, following the two out of the room as he crawled along the ceiling. 

“Right.” The other members followed along, the lot of them piling into the private elevator that had access to the living quarters. 

“Unidentified person(s) in the elevator. Cannot access requested floor.” FRIDAY’s voice rang out when Tony tried to send them up. 

“Override, Fri. Give identity ‘Spider-Man’ access so long as I am with him.” Tony stated, nodding to himself as the elevator rose. Peter turned to look at him, curiosity and excitement buzzing through his system, but he couldn’t show it. So he just pretended he wasn’t freaking out. 

 

“Any allergies you need us to be aware of, Underoos? Don’t want to accidentally poison you or anything.” Tony asked midway through Steve cooking pancakes in the form of a breakfast lunch. 

“I mean, I can’t do vinegar, lavender, lemon juice, peppermint oil, or turmeric. It’s really annoying because most household smell accents contain them, so they give me rashes. But there shouldn’t be anything wrong with pancakes.” Tony nodded absently, already jotting that down. 

“So very little to no Asian food, then. Disappointing, but not surprising, I guess. Is it part of the spider thing you have going on? How’d that come about, anyway?” Peter looked up at the not-so-subtle dig for information, but figured his reaction to Oscorp would be funny enough that he could afford a little personal information. 

“I’m assuming so, because it started after the bite. That’s what it was, by the way. A radioactive spider that Oscorp lost bit me.” Tony’s immediate grimace at the name made the others chuckle.

“Oscorp. Gross. So behind the times. What, so it turned into a form of gene therapy? That can’t have been comfortable.” He muttered, already making a mental note to look into Oscorp’s extracurriculars. 

“No, I uh. I was stuck in bed with a fever of a 107* for a day or so. Felt like I was actually in Hell. Lucky I didn’t go to the hospital, I’d probably be on the run or stuck in the lab with that spider.” Peter reminisced, remembering waking up with abs. Man, those were the days. He’d been far enough along on T that he hadn’t even thought about it, his dysphoria being alleviated with his binder and the occasional packer(Though Flash making fun of him for his packer falling out was at the forefront of his mind every time he tried.)

“Yikes, kid. Any other issues we may need to know about since we appear to be teaming up?” Clint crossed over to the kid, putting his hand on his forehead absently, as if to make sure he was okay now. Peter just held still, surprised. 

“I mean, as far as I can tell, I can’t thermoregulate. My senses get to be too much sometimes. There’s other stuff, but it’s not that important.” Rather, Peter didn’t want to go into all of his weaknesses around a group of people that could very well take him down. He’d shared too much already, but he didn’t want to give away that he was still suspicious of them. “So we’re really teaming up, huh?”

“Well, we haven’t discussed it,” Steve glared at the other two. “But you’ve got spirit. You’re too young to join the team, but I don’t see why you can’t join us once or twice for some of the bigger battles.”

“So I should still be worried about you guys getting sent after me if this goes through, or if Ross gains more power? I know he’s been pissed at my actions, he hasn’t exactly been subtle.” Peter lifted his mask to right under his nose, taking a drink(water- he couldn’t stand soda or any sort of carbonation after the bite, it was too intense.) The room got somber again at the mention of Ross.

“Let’s just hope it doesn’t come to that. Depending on the circumstances, we won’t actively need to take you in. But you do understand that as soon as this gets ratified, your actions will become even more illegal than they already are? I mean, not the giving old ladies directions and the rescuing kittens, but anything above that level.” Tony sat down opposite the superhero, looking him in the eyes. “We won’t be able to help you past that, may even have to publicly condemn you. I want you to be prepared.”

“I know. I’m well aware of the situation, which is why I even showed up today or accepted the suit at all. I’m aware of the risk to my identity, but if there are others like me, kids too young or foolish to know how to keep themselves hidden from the start… I’ve got to do it for them.” Peter looked down at his drink, then up at Tony, steeling himself. “‘When you can do the things I can, and you don’t stop the bad things… They happen because of you.’ I’m not a bystander anymore. I can’t sit back and watch people suffer, watch people d-ie. Not anymore.”  _ Never again. _

“Kid… That’s why we’re here too. If anyone understands that, we do.” Steve went to put a reassuring hand on the kid’s shoulder, but Peter pulled away, looking up at him in surprise. 

“Sorry, sorry. Instinct.”  _ With great power comes great responsibility. Life is the greatest one of all, Peter. I’m glad you did the responsible thing and told us, even though it was scary. I’ll always be here for you. You’re my nephew, my family. It’s ok. No, hey, Peter, don’t cry. I know, you were afraid, but you’re safe here. Life is scary. Thank you for telling us so you could live it the way you needed. _


	2. Tony and the Boys

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Steve, let me ask you something. Before the serum, did you ever stop trying to get into the army because the doctors told you to? For your own health?” Tony turned and looked Steve in the eyes, knowing it was the best comparison to make the man understand. And it did. His shoulders slumped and his face changed. He wasn't happy, but he understood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, I realize the likelihood of these two being the only kids in the entire nation to crack it is bordering on impossible(especially given their locations), but I really didn’t want to introduce OC’s, and the plot calls for it. This is a turning point in a crack fic, okay? Lowkey it’s a serious fic but if I want to alter the MCU to where most high schoolers and college-age kids are dumb af, I can. They’re the ones that started bullshit science like arc reactors. Let me do my thing.   
> Also, to establish some background, as far as Civil War goes in this fic, the main thing that changed was that Steve was upfront with Tony from the beginning, and actually was willing to listen when Tony tried to compromise and reassure them that it was nowhere near the finished product. For his part, Tony wasn’t quite as much of a dick about it, especially not with the Wanda part, and though he didn’t quite take his parents’ deaths well, he handled it much better, able to register and logically reason with himself that Bucky had been mind-controlled and was no way at fault. Thus, as a team, they were able to work together to fight Zemo and help Bucky, as the Accords weren’t finalized yet(they’d gone through official channels of protesting so they were now in the works again). Tony still has inherent issues with Bucky and Siberia, because he and Steve went expecting to have to take down more supersoldiers, and instead Zemo tried to force the “he killed your parents” thing, making Tony watch his parents’ deaths. So in short, the team is still together, but tensions are running high bc Ross is a dick and also they’re dysfunctional.
> 
> Trigger Warnings: Some sensory overload(triggered and people being insensitive, but brief), guilt complex(blaming self for loved one's death), self-depreciation, more dysphoria about Peter's T not working.   
> Old memes? Idk it's a pretty fluffy chapter as far as this fic is going to go. Enjoy :)

Spider-Man ended up not staying for much longer after that, simply thanking Steve for the mountain of food that he made(and the kid ate) and leaving through the window. The other Avengers ate in silence, contemplating and processing what they’d learned about the kid. Sam was the first one to break the silence, with a succinct “Kid’s got issues.” 

“As if we don’t. The kid is doing kinda well so far. Let him keep at it, and we’ll help when we can.” Tony snorted, taking his plate to the sink. 

“Are you sure about this, Tony? You gave him a suit, pulling him into actively going against Ross in legislature as well as on the streets… is it really the best thing for a kid to be doing?” Steve asked, pulling his Concerned Mom™ pose out, crossing his arms and leaning against the doorway. 

“Steve, let me ask you something. Before the serum, did you ever stop trying to get into the army because the doctors told you to? For your own health?” Tony turned and looked Steve in the eyes, knowing it was the best comparison to make the man understand. And it did. His shoulders slumped and his face changed. He wasn't happy, but he understood. 

“No. I kept going. I would have kept going even if I hadn't been given the serum.” He ran a hand over his face, grimacing. “Okay, so the kid's not going to stop. I get it. I suppose you've got safety protocols installed in that suit of his?” 

“I don't know, FRIDAY, how many safety protocols are installed in Spider-Guy's suit?” Tony asked semi-sarcastically.

“Ninety-three, boss. I can list them, if you want.” She replied. Steve was surprised, but Tony could see the shame behind that. Tony cared so much about the others and their safety, and Steve was still pulling out the assumptions he had when they’d first started working together. He worked on equipment for all of them endlessly, constantly giving them upgrades to ensure they were alright, as well as employing the best people to take care of them should they end up hurt. It made sense that with the kid, his first response would be to ensure the kid's safety, at least to Tony. He supposed everyone had their expectations and stereotypes.

“No, no. That's fine. Thank you, FRIDAY.” 

“Of course, boss.”

“Based on that and the kid's impromptu speech back there, you really think not giving him a chance to get back at Ross is a good idea? Any of you? I'm all ears as to why, if so.” Tony wanted to throw his hands in the air, but it wasn’t the time to do so. The team wasn’t being antagonistic on purpose, there was no need to get defensive, but it was a reflex, and a strong one at that. 

“I don't trust him.” Natasha spoke up, but she didn't seem particularly bothered by that fact. Clint snorted.

“You barely trust me, Nat. We've worked together for years. I think if that's your only complaint, we're pretty good to go on the whole teaming up with Kid Flash.” 

“I don't know. I still don't think it's cool to bring a kid into this, but if it had to be any kid, I guess it's a good thing it's that one. Even if he is a prick.” Sam sniffed in distaste, masking his worry as contempt. He may be a pseudo-therapist, but that didn't mean he was anywhere the team mediator, nor was he the type to give anyone the benefit of the doubt. That was definitely more Bruce’s area. Speaking of… 

“Bruce? You've been quiet. What's up, what's on that big brain of yours?” Tony prompted, slightly worried about his response. Bruce was the scientist on the team that you went to with actual science questions. Tony was the one you went to if you had had 3 hours of sleep in two days and wanted to see if lightsabers were actually a thing that you could make. It made him cooler, but also less credible. Bruce's opinion, which wasn't often voiced, was mostly unanimously respected among the Avengers. 

He took his time in answering, seeming to think it over several times. “The only other person in the last 10 years who has looked at me and seen 'Bruce Banner, scientist with 7 PhDs’ instead of ‘trigger happy green rage monster’ was Tony. I think, if the kid is educated enough to understand what I've done work on, then he's educated enough to help make decisions that could affect the future. Maturity doesn't always mean knowledge and insight, but in this case, the kid seems to have all three.” 

“That.. does make sense.” Steve sighed, dropping his head. “I still don’t like it, but I trust your judgment, Tony. Just make sure the kid doesn’t get too headstrong. That usually doesn’t end well.” 

“Gotcha. Makes sense. I don’t think any of us want that.” 

  
  
  


Tony had decided to deal with the future intern project by giving a surprise assembly at the kids’ school, which in hindsight, should probably have consulted the kids and/or their relatives first. 

Of course, that Thought only occurred to him afterward. For now, he was simply waiting in the annex of the kid’s gym, laughing silently to himself as the kids all filed in, grumbling about an assembly on a Monday. Technically, the contest had only ended last night, Sunday at midnight, but he’d contacted the school midday about how they had the only two people who’d broken the code, and they had been all too happy to set up a last-minute assembly for him. Although to keep his dramatic entrance, he had to hide in a closet while they got the kids in and settled.  _ Oh, the irony. I could make so many jokes when I come out, but which one? Hmm… Maybe keep it on the low, don’t want the conservatives to think I’m there to corrupt their kids or whatever nonsense. A lawsuit would take away from the attention of the competition. Pepper would be so proud if she could hear me right now.  _

Finally, the school’s principal( _ was it Mortia? Morita? I don’t know, who cares. _ ) calmed the kids down, absolutely not containing his excitement at all. 

“I would like to introduce you all to our very esteemed guest, a man we are lucky to have. It’s thanks to the students of this school that we were able to do this, but ah. I will not give away his surprise. Ladies and gentlemen, I welcome-” Oh hell no, no one was introducing him but him. He was Tony fucking Stark. 

He kicked down the door, ignoring the pop from the very technologically advanced confetti shooters placed just outside the door and strode down to meet the man in the middle of the room. 

“You know who I am.” Immediately, half the room had their cellphones up and was filming him, while the other half screamed their excitement. It was deafening. Tony supposed it was fitting for the school to have the two people able to understand what he could be the most prestigious science-based high school in New York. After all, it filled him with no small satisfaction when he was able to raise his hands and the room immediately went quiet, with the exception of a low rumble of kids whispering to each other. 

“Well, the last time I was stuck in a closet, it was much longer than that.” There. The only closet joke he had allowed himself, and he immediately spotted which kids were gay based on who laughed.  _ Perfect. _ “Anyways, I believe you all have heard about the most recent competition I placed online, for fellow nerds to crack? It ended last night-” The kids’ enthusiastic muttering turned into a roar, filling the auditorium again, and he saw a few kids puff themselves up as if they were getting something from this. Fakers. None of them were Harley or Peter, so he didn’t pay them any mind. 

“Silence, please, unless you don’t actually want to hear what I have to say.” He waited, not entirely pleased. He was not a patient man, after all. “Now, I would have brought flashcards, but the last time I did that I exposed my secret superhero identity, and the time before that, well. I was finally out of the closet, so maybe flashcards aren’t a good idea.” 

...okay, so he’d slipped that one in as well. It wasn’t really a joke, though, so it didn’t count. 

“I’m just going to come out and say it. There were only two students in the entire country to complete the challenge in the way I designed it to be completed.” Dead silence. Damn, these teenagers were dramatic. Then again, so was Tony. “And they both go to this school.” Screams. Can they just calm the fuck down, please?

Tony held up both hands, scowling. He really was running low on patience. The screens he had brought with him(because there was no way he was doing a school presentation without a powerpoint) wheeled in. He didn’t actually have a presentation, but he was going to project the names of the kids up, in case they got lost in the uproar. He didn’t want to get stood up in front of the kids’ entire school. That’d just be embarrassing. When the screaming showed no signs of abating, he gestured to turn the screens on, and to principal whats-his-face to shut them up. In the meantime, he pulled out his phone to text Pepper. 

**Me:** What, exactly, would be the legal ramifications of potentially threatening a room full of teenagers? -TS

**Pepper <3: ** Tony, no.

**Me:** Tony, yes. No but seriously, lasting issues? -TS

**Pepper <3: ** Extreme drop in stock, several lawsuits, precautions put in place where you’re never allowed near kids again, probably a drop of this whole program.

**Me:** Damn. That’s too much work. Well, they got away this time. -TS

**Pepper <3:** I’ve got a meeting, and it’s late in Sweden. I’ll call you at a reasonable hour, okay? I love you.

**Me:** Love you too -TS

 

By the time the conversation was finished, the kids had quieted down to a reasonable level and Tony was able to continue. He tapped his glasses, making sure Fri was ready for action in case something happened. 

“If the students could join me up on stage when I call them. Their names are Peter Parker and Harley Keener.” And the screens flickered to life, showing the two names. An assistant wheeled a cart over with the two certificates and school passes to get the kids out of school for the rest of the day. 

He had FRIDAY scan the crowd for the two, finding Harley as he stood primly and picked his way down the awful bleachers, but he couldn’t find Peter, not until Friday identified his best friend, who was hugging him as the kid was curled up in a ball, arms around his head. The other students around seemed to be pressing in and jabbering, and it was then that Tony had the Thought. The Thought that he should have gotten this preapproved with the students. 

He stepped forward, towards the bleachers, and the crowd rippled in response. He stopped five feet from the bottom row, using his arms to metaphorically part the students like a wave(he was honestly surprised it worked, but he definitely wasn’t complaining. He didn’t mind being a prophet.) He beckoned one of his hands to the friend(Ted?) and the boy helped Peter stand up, walking him down the bleachers. His hands were clenched extremely tight over his ears and his eyes were screwed shut.  _ Sensory Overload. Shit. Okay. I can work with this. I’ll just send them to the office after one last hurrah so we can talk in the quiet. _

He placed a hand on Fred’s shoulder, speaking quietly. 

“Take him to the office, we’ll catch up in a second. If he’s got soundproof headphones or sunglasses or something in his locker, get them on the way.” Ted still had stars in his eyes, but he took care of his friend above his admiration, and Tony found himself impressed. Not enough to care about what his name actually was, but still.

He returned to the makeshift stage, telling the aide to take the stuff to the office, and patted Harley on the back once. 

“Ladies, gents, and prepubescents, give your two classmates another round of applause. I’m out of here.” He turned on his heel, marching towards the doors with Harley on his heel. The screams followed him out. 

“Christ, children are annoying. So, sharpshooter, what do you know about Peter? Are you close? If so, do you know of any way to help him?” 

Harley stared at him for a moment, then shook his head, watching the floor as they walked. “No, I only know of him because he’s a year ahead and supposedly the smartest kid on the block. The only issue is, he’s also trans, so that makes him the biggest target.” They walked a couple more feet before Harley hummed out, “I’m surprised you remember me.” 

Tony stopped short, staring at him in disbelief. “Surprised I remembered you? Kid, I tried to look for you for weeks after everything settled down so I could talk to you again. You weren’t there.” 

“Oh. Yeah, my mom made us move after all the stuff appeared in the garage because then I had to tell her what happened with the suit and how you kinda lived there for a day. I always thought that you’d be able to find me if you really looked, though.” 

“Pepper wouldn’t let me do the more illegal stuff, like hacking the school. She kinda figured that was the issue, and thought it would just anger your mom more if I went all Big Brother.” At the kid’s look, he sighed. “What, do they not even teach 1984 anymore? That was the only book in English that I enjoyed.” 

“Well, I just got here four months ago, so I wouldn’t know. Mom hasn’t stopped running since the barn incident. I think she did read that book, and thought you were the brother.” Harley shrugged, picking at his hair. That wasn’t good news, that meant she was going to be a problem for whatever position these two got. They had reached what Tony assumed was the office, however, because Red was outside the door, waiting for them. 

“Hey, kid. Nice work back there. How’s Peter?” Tony asked, using the time to make FRIDAY run facial recognition on the kid, identifying him as Ned, Ned Leeds. Interesting. 

“He’s okay, or rather, he will be. He doesn’t do well with lots of loud noise or sensory stuff. It’ll be fine in a little bit, so long as you guys keep your voices down and maybe lend him your sunglasses.” Tony nodded, having no intention of actually doing that. His sunglasses were worth more than this kid’s life, and had patented technology in them. Harley shot him a look, and Tony smirked. Having someone actually know what he was doing was nice. 

“Is this something I need to worry about on the daily, is it anxiety linked? Should the kid be on medication or something? Because I’m pretty stressful to deal with on a normal basis.” Tony supposed he should have added that as a prereq: do not complete if you cannot handle Tony Stark on the daily. He’s an asshole. 

“I mean, not really? He’s stressed anyways because you’re like. Literally his hero, and his only other contact with you is through Spider-Man-” The kid immediately shut up at that, and both Tony and Harley tensed.

“Peter knows Spider-Man?” He pressed, looking at the kid instead of the feedback he was getting signifying they should take this conversation out of the very public hallway. 

“I mean- yeah- I shouldn’t have said that- he makes Spider-Man’s web slingers. And web fluid, and all that.” The kid stuttered, looking absolutely miserable that he had just given away his best friend’s secret to Tony Stark. Tony, on the other hand, was absolutely delighted. 

“Wonderful. I told the kid to give me his number so I could recruit him, that is some solid chemistry work right there. I’ll have to have him work with me on Underoos’ suit. Thank you, Mr. Leeds. It’s been wonderful working with you.” He patted the kid on the shoulder and steered Harley into the office building right as the crowd of kids came around the corner. He locked the door behind them for good measure, though the kids really should be getting to class instead of coming after Tony. He walked through the hall, finding Peter in the first room to the right. It was an empty counselor’s room, with the door mostly shut and the lights off. The kid had fallen asleep in the office chair, curled up in a large old sweatshirt that went past his hands. Tony entered with Harley, closing the door firmly behind him, but not turning on the light until he knew the kid was feeling better. He was considerate like that( _ or he’d had one too many anxiety attacks, stuck where the lights were too bright and the voices too loud, even though it was just him on his own in an empty lab, so alone- _ ).

“Peter?” Harley was the first one to whisper, watching Tony as he did up the blinds on the little window beside the door, and then on the one behind Peter’s chair, darkening the room further with the added bonus of getting rid of prying eyes. Thus, Tony didn’t see Peter jump nearly a foot off the chair, wide awake and staring at Harley like he was a cat and Harley had interrupted his slumber, which Harley supposed he had. “My name is Harley. Are you okay to turn on the lights? Can you talk?” 

“Yes.” Peter croaked, clearing his throat and rubbing at his back as he uncurled. There was something slightly off, maybe the fact that he could balance perfectly on his ass while the chair moved, or that he’d woken so suddenly, or that he’d fallen asleep in the first place. But Harley had done more research into anxiety disorders since Tony’s visit, had learned better ways of dealing with mental illness. He wasn’t going to pry, not so soon after an attack. “Lights are fine.”

“Okay,” Tony spoke behind Peter’s chair, making him turn his head. “Well, in that case, Harley? My vision isn’t what it used to be, I can’t read documents in the dark. FRIDAY, scan the room for bugs, audio listening systems, that sort of thing.”

“No bugs or listening systems detected, boss.”

“Good, now block any incoming and outgoing signals for the next 20 minutes. Boys, this information cannot leave this room, with the exception of your parents or guardians. I will need some sort of permission from them, I expect. We’ll have a meeting with Pepper about it later. For now, here are your certificates of certified ingenuity, signed Stark Industries and me. Any questions, before I tell you what’s going to happen?” Tony raised an eyebrow at Peter when the boy meekly raised his hand. Christ, the boy would have to get over his hero worship soon if he wasn’t going to be annoying to work with. “I’m not a teacher, Pete. What’s up?”

“I just. How, exactly, did you know about my name being, well, being Peter, Mr. Stark?” He asked, glancing at Harley like he was going to bite his head off. 

“School systems have a section they apparently put preferred names in, though it’s kinda bullshit that you don’t have it just as your name. What’s the deal with that? Also, your pronouns are he/him, right?” Tony wasn’t going to beat around the bush when he could roll it over with a tractor. 

“Yeah, thanks for checking. And they, ah. They want to have my legal name on file, in case something goes wrong, or whatever. And the legal process to change my name is a long one, and we just got back from one, so I don’t want to bother my aunt with it.” 

“What do you mean you just got back from one?” Tony asked sharply. He hadn’t seen a history of crime or anything when he’d done his research on the kid, but maybe he hadn’t looked hard enough. Harley knew though. 

“Was it about your uncle?” He asked, quiet. 

“Yeah.” Peter looked down and nodded, ignoring the pang it gave him. 

“Okayyy, I’m sensing a topic for another time. How about trying this one for size. How do you know Underoos?” Tony wasn’t sure he wanted to pry into this kid’s family life all that much. He’d just met him. 

“You mean Spider-Man. Oh.” Peter absently corrected him, before realizing his mistake.

“So you know him well enough for him to tell you about his adventures into highly classified document partaking. Shame, he didn’t seem the chatty type.” Peter just stared at Tony as the man pulled one of the extremely cheap plastic chairs around to straddle, crossing his arms over the back. 

“Classified documents? I thought you only met him once. Oh, though I suppose you did mention the meeting… Saturday? Is that what you’re talking about? Why did you want to meet him? Also, he really loves his suit, it made him really happy. Thank you for that, he’s been having a rough time.” 

“Nice save, kid, but I know he mentioned the Accords. He can’t have chatted that much about me and not done so.” 

“Well, I guess he mentioned them, but mostly he was talking about the suit and how awesome it was, even if it didn’t come with web shooters.” 

“Well, yeah, it seems you had him covered there. Super Han Solo fan #1 mentioned you made them, and the webs themselves. We’ll have to talk science later.” Harley looked about two seconds from jumping in, exasperated. “So I was thinking personal interns.” 

“What. What about them?” Peter asked, blind sighted by the second topic change in less than a minute. 

“No, you guys, kid. My personal interns. Part-time, of course, you still have school, but it would come with good pay and fancy recommendation letters and medical insurance and all those things normal students would die to have. You don’t have to if you don’t want to, of course. No hard feelings, I’ll send you on your way with a cash prize or find you a different spot in the company or whatever. Afraid to say, I won’t let you go to Oscorp or Hammer Industries, that’s just not good business.”

“Really? That would be so good. My mom wanted me to get a job. She can’t even argue, if it comes with medical insurance.” Harley smiled down at his hands, ignoring the offer to go the other way. “Just a tip, though? When you’re talking with her? Don’t include the opt-out stuff. If it’s all or nothing, she’ll pick all, and I refuse to sit by and let that opportunity go to waste.”

“I’m no homewrecker, sharpshooter. I’ll take that into consideration, but I’m not going to fuck up your family life over something like this.” Harley laughed at that.

“It’ll be fine, it’s up to me in the end, right? Just have to get working papers. It’ll be fine. She’ll get over herself sooner or later. Besides, I applied for this, not her. Hope your internship won’t count as working in a factory.” Tony frowned, but shook his head.

“Nah, you’ll be working mostly in design and testing, in my own personal lab. Well, one of them. So that should be fine. Peter?” 

“I mean. Aunt May will want to talk to you. But she’ll definitely go for it, so long as you have like. All your anti-discriminatory policies up to date and everything. She knows how much I look up to you, and the extra income will definitely help. Just, uh, make sure I don’t make more than her? She might get a bit miffed.”

“I’ll be sure to set up a college fund with the extra, then.” Tony pulled out his phone, making note of what the boys had said. He was absolutely serious about this, and wanted to make sure these two got everything they could need or want. “And it would be a bit embarrassing if our anti-discriminatory policies weren’t up to date, given that Rhodey’s black, Pepper is very much a woman, and I am definitely not straight. I’ll double check, though.” 

“I don’t have anything else that can’t wait until the next meeting. You’re meeting with us and our parents and Pepper, right? When would that be, exactly?” Harley asked, on top of things. When Peter confirmed he didn’t have any other questions, Tony turned to the younger boy. 

“I’ll give you two my personal number and we’ll work something out. Probably next week, because Pepper is away to Sweden till Saturday night.” 

“We still have school, and everyone’s going to be asking us a bunch of questions. What, uh. What do you want us to tell them?” Peter looked between the other two, and Tony hoped he wasn’t prone to jealousy or abandonment issues or anything like that. That would be troublesome to deal with. Not that he could blame him, but he really would not make a good role model to latch on to, even if he had quit drinking per Pepper’s demand( _ she wanted to live with him past the age of fifty-five, and even though he definitely couldn’t see that far, for her he’d try _ ).

“Shit.” He muttered. He hadn’t actually come up with a cover story that would keep the kids in a relatively safe position from the press. “How about this: to everyone outside this room, except those on a need-to-know basis, so your Teddy Bear can be told, Peter, you guys got a low-to-mid level internship in R&D, and you’re thinking it over. You can tell your guardians the truth, in fact, please do, but to everyone else make it uninteresting enough that they’ll be coming to me instead, asking why I didn’t give you more. Oh, and stick together. I can’t have either of you getting hurt on my watch, so try not to get too involved in Spider-Boy’s crime-fighting at least until we get the internship up and running. Then I suppose you’ll see him through the Tower anyways, so it’s not a big deal.” Peter looked up at that, something like apprehension and excitement on his face. Tony would really need to teach that kid to be less of an open book, he’d never be able to lie to people like that.

“Will we get to meet the other Avengers? What about Thor? Oh, man, Thor is so cool. I mean not that I’m not happy to be meeting you, Mr. Stark, you’re still my favorite, obviously. I just- they’re real-life heroes, you know? It’s so impressive. Oh, my god, will I get to work with Doctor Banner!? That would be amazing-!” Peter’s voice cracked and ran high, and he fell silent, embarrassed. His cheeks puffed out a little, and he stared at the table looking like he was possibly going to cry, a complete opposite from just three seconds ago, and Tony _ could not deal with a crying teenager. _ He hurried to cheer the boy up, saying things he wouldn’t have otherwise, because he knew the team was busy and didn’t even know about this yet, much less approved it. 

“It’s okay, Pete, I get it. Puberty can fuck anyone up. And yeah, you’ll meet the Avengers at some point, since I’m going to be having you two possibly work on their tech. Not right away, of course, but sooner or later, after I’ve broken you in.” Tony was entirely too uncomfortable right now, so he patted the teen’s shoulder and stood up, stretching. His back had been killing him since the fight in Siberia(do not think, it’s not cold here, it’s  _ not _ ). “I think our 20 minutes are near up, so here’s my contact number-” He took two of the business cards on the desk and scribbled the number on the back, handing them to the boys. “Get in touch when you can, when you’re ready to plan. You should also probably exchange numbers between yourselves, so you can coordinate and scheme that way. Remember what I said- stick together, and keep your noses out of trouble. The press is worse than a gang of sharks when they smell blood, so don’t give them anything, and I’ll handle everything else.” 

He waved and awkwardly made his way out of the office, stopping short at the sight of Ned sitting in a chair in front of the office, looking like he was in trouble. 

“Hello, shortstacks, what are you up to? Never mind, it doesn’t matter. You’re Parker’s bfflmao, whatever, and you told me about the web shooters, so I’m putting a bit of faith in you, kid. This here’s my forehead of security’s number, Happy Hogan. If something bad happens, and I mean emergency level of bad, contact him. Peter has permission to tell you whatever he wants, but try to keep it on the down-low? And by that, I mean not telling random strangers his biggest secrets, even if they are as awesome as me. See you around, Solo.” Tony handed the other card to him, one he had been intending on giving Peter, but decided against. He couldn’t treat the boys differently, at least not like that. Whatever past was between him and Harley was over now, and Peter was just as brilliant and deserved just as much attention and opportunities as Harley. To be fair, he may even be smarter, not that Tony wanted to pit the two against each other. His solution to the puzzle was more complex and implied a deeper understanding of the problem than Harley, who had just solved it without thinking of ways to improve the situation.  _ You sound like Howard. Never enough. Always room for improvement. You can’t escape him when you spent the first 15 years of your life becoming him. _

No. He couldn’t escape him. But he could overcome him. He would never do what Howard would do, because Howard wouldn’t have done this in the first place. He never gave others the light of day, never nurtured and expanded upon their talents. So Tony was going to prove him wrong. But first, he had arrangements to make, both to his life and the Tower. If he was going to publicly support these boys, he would need a safehouse of sorts, to ensure they wouldn’t be harmed in any sort of battle that might take place. Pepper had reminded him of it over text the night before, and he’d started drafting up plans right then. 

  
  
  


The boys were left in the room after Mr. Stark left, and Peter couldn’t help but awkwardly stare at the other kid. He didn’t look too different, definitely more southern than Peter was. Peter wasn’t all that great at telling people’s age, since he looked younger than he was supposed to, and Ned could look anywhere from 17 to 12 depending on what he was doing and what he had done with his hair(Peter had seen it slicked back for a school dance once and it was simultaneously hilarious and horrifying that his friend could look that dead inside. He’d helped him wash the gel out in the rarely-used bathroom on the other side of campus, and the resulting wet tousled look was just enough to make Peter’s hormones go a bit crazy. A little bit.). 

“How old are you?” He blurted out, slightly confused. The kid couldn’t be more than a year older than him-

“14. How old are you?”  _ Motherfuck. Language. _ He almost laughed at his instinctual reprimand, mocking Mr. Rogers, but he was in the middle of a conversation. People don’t just laugh randomly in the middle of conversations. 

“I’m 15. Have been for about 3 months.” Peter didn’t really need to add that last part, but it was instinctual. People were always surprised when he told them how old he was. It was an effect of the T not working, or being trans in general. Peter hated it. 

“Four months apart. Interesting.” Harley replied, not caring too much. Peter felt his anxiety rising bit by bit.

“Indeed. So, do you have any friends here, or do you want to hang out with me and Ned? Because Mr. Stark said to stay together and keep our heads down, so…” Peter trailed off, not really sure where he was going with that.  _ so you should totally become my friend even though that would make you a target _ ? Not likely. It would be safer for Harley to stay away. 

“Nah, I just transferred here. Didn’t really have the time to make friends, plus like 90% of the people here are snobbish assholes, and the rest are just trying to survive. So long as you promise not to ramble too much about Star Wars, I’m game.” Harley may have been the younger of the two, but he was definitely more confident. He slid his old flip phone across the table for Peter to put his contact info into, smirking slightly as Peter saw just how old it was. “My ma didn’t want any of that ‘newfangled technology’, especially since one of the most popular features is location-based services. I had to use the library computer to do the problem Tony put online.” 

“Jeez.” Peter grimaced, thinking about the technological black hole the boy must have lived in. “That sucks, I can’t imagine what I’d do without technology. I build things all the time, I’d go crazy.” 

“Well, so long as it isn’t anything weapon-related or has the ability to communicate with others, I’m allowed to build things too, she just doesn’t like to be reminded of potato guns or crazy billionaires breaking into our garage and camping out like a squatter. It’s a very specific fear, so I’m allowed a go on like 95% of the projects I do.” Harley shrugged nonchalantly, taking Peter’s phone from where it was sitting in front of him and adding his own contact information. He raised an eyebrow at the notification of Ned texting him(“PETER HOLY SHIT TONY STANK KNOWS MY NAME AND…”)  

“I would say that’s fair, but I don’t think it is. It’s better than the alternative, though, so at least there’s that.” Peter shrugged, snorting at Ned’s typo before pocketing his phone. “Well, if you’re really serious about being friends with me, you’re gonna be friends with Ned too. I don’t mean you have to, like a requirement, I mean you will. It’s Ned, you’ll probably get closer with him than you will me, at least at first, and we’re going to be coworkers. It’s Ned, man. Though, he might take personal offense at your lack of Star Wars knowledge.”

Harley raised an eyebrow at that, but shrugged again, apparently not thinking it worth it to question the other kid. He shrugged a lot, and apparently wasn’t very talkative. That’s fine, he and Ned could deal with that. “I’m just more into Matrix-like sci-fi than I am Star Wars type.”

“That’s fine, we can work with that, so long as you know the basics, like the  _ Luke, I am your father _ type stuff.” 

“Of course I know that, you’d have to be over eighty to not know that.” Harley scoffed, before thinking. “Do you think Tony made Captain America watch Star Wars? He’s over eighty, right?” Harley asked, and Peter looked up at that.

“Dude, yeah! He’s gotta be closer to a hundred, he was born in 1918. Oh, man. That’d be so weird. Imagine watching Star Wars with Captain America, that’d be hilarious. I bet Mr. Stark’s tried to make a lightsaber because he or Hawkeye bet he couldn’t.” 

“The real question isn’t if he’s tried, it’s if he succeeded. After all, plasma is highly unstable, but then again, so is Tony. He’d resonate with it.” Harley laughed at his own joke, which made him entirely too cool in Peter’s mind. 

“Dude, we could make a lightsaber! It can’t be that hard, so long as we don’t try to do anything with radiation or exact replicas. If we could design a magnetic plasma, have arc reactor tech creating an electromagnet in the handle…” 

“Okay, but then you’re just holding a blob of extremely hot plasma. There’s nothing holding the plasma in a sword-like position.” Harley frowned, leading the way out of the office. “Maybe if we could get some of his more recent nanobot tech, make a magnetic chain of sorts…”

“Ah, but then we wouldn’t be able to fight with them, they’d just get stuck together at certain angles. If we can program it so if they get in range to other bots that aren’t similarly coded, we can rearrange their polarity to temporarily polarize as positive or negative, and that would take care of the sound effects too, I think…” Peter trailed off at the sight of Ned sitting there with his phone, staring at it in wonder. “Ned?”

“PETER!” Ned flew out of the seats and into Peter’s arms, practically putting all of his weight on Peter. Peter, not expecting it, nearly fell backward, if it wasn’t for Harley’s steadying arm. Ned paid him no mind yet, talking a mile a minute. “Holy shit, man! Are you okay? And also how are you not freaking out right now? Tony mothereffing Stark was just talking to you! That is an important experience! I would know, he just talked to me too! Holy shit, my dude! What did he say? Also, he gave me full permission to know everything, so don’t leave out the juicy details!” Ned pulled back, looking at Peter expectantly. 

“I’m fine, man. And believe me, I did freak out, just on the inside. And we can talk about that later, we need to get to class. Oh, and also, Harley, Ned. Ned, Harley. He’s gonna hang with us, because Mr. Stark said so. He’s pretty cool, I think we’re gonna try to build some lightsabers together. But for now, we’ve got to get to class.” 

The bell rang for lunch.

“You were saying?” Harley asked dryly, smirking. Ned grinned, turning to him. “LIGHTSABERS?!” 

 

Lunch was… difficult. Peter and Harley were suddenly the most popular kids in school, for both good and bad attention. They kept trying to talk about the lightsabers, but other kids kept butting in and interrupting them, and their table was full to the brim. Finally, about halfway through, Peter got a text from an unknown number. 

**Unknown:** Come sit with me

**Me:** Who are you

**Unknown:** Michelle Jones, MJ, aca deca, table to your right and two down. You guys are idiots for thinking this would go any better than it has. 

**Me:** What even

**MJ:** Also, you should really stop ogling Liz Allan. 

He showed the texts to Ned, who took that as a sign to do so, getting up and heading over. Peter shrugged at Harley and followed, beckoning him when he hesitated. 

“Hey, losers. Welcome to my table.” MJ greeted, looking bored. 

“Thanks?” Peter asked, not really sure what was going on. MJ was scary. She was smart, had been one of the main people on the team and was quietly helping Liz organize and lead the team this year, but she was quiet, and didn’t ever really put down a book. 

“You’re Harley Keener, the idiot who decided hanging out with these losers was a good option. Congrats, you just bought yourself a one-way ticket to Pick-on-me-ville.” MJ stopped talking temporarily to stare down a freshman who had thought it was a good idea to follow them over. 

“Get lost, punk.” 

“I’m sorry, why did you invite us over here?” Harley asked, slightly irritated. 

“Because you were in obvious distress and are idiots for not using this very reason for leaving for the rest of the day. Plus, I love drawing people in crisis. Here, look.” MJ turned her notebook in a 180 and showed them annoyingly accurate drawings of their faces when they were being crowded in at their table. 

“Shit, you’re right. We totally could have ditched. It’s not like the other classes I have matter, either, it’s only PE and Spanish left for me.” Peter scowled, looking at his plate in frustration. 

“Just go talk to the office, dude. I’m pretty sure they’d let you leave.” Ned patted him on the back, before turning back to MJ’s drawings. “You know, you’re like. Really talented. Those are pretty good. You catch Peter’s frog mouth perfectly.” 

“Hey!” Peter protested. “We promised never to talk about my frog mouth again!”

“And Hitler promised not to invade Czechoslovakia, Peter. Welcome to the real world.” Ned grinned, making Harley laugh. MJ smirked, starting the outlines of the complete and utter betrayal that was making its way across Peter’s face. He couldn’t believe that after all that, his best friend would do him like that. To diss him, and with such an old meme, too. The betrayal would be etched in his heart until he was eighty, and he told his friend as such. 

“Sure, Peter, sure.” He clapped Peter on the back, making him wince slightly. There were some bruises there from a fight earlier that morning, that Peter had taken upon himself to break up. The crooks were immensely surprised that Spider-Man had been out and about in the early morning hours, but that hadn’t stopped them from attempting to smack him around, and even succeeding in getting in a few hits. He’d narrowly escaped before the police arrived, being in an underground subway, after all. The bruises were mostly gone, but the areas on his back still ached due to his binder rubbing on them and messing up his skin. He really needed to get a new binder, as he’d had this one for over a year now, but it was the one Uncle Ben had gotten him, and he didn’t really want to part with it. Still, he should work on designing a binder that would work better both with the suit and with his healing factor, as right now it didn’t work. Ned noticed his wince and gave him a worried look, but Peter shook his head, turning back to the conversation. 

“But seriously, you sure you’re going to be okay without us, Ned? They’re going to bother you since we won’t be there.” Peter was concerned. 

“Then I can just tell them I don’t know anything about it, and I won’t even be lying, since you haven’t even told me anything yet.” Ned shrugged, not too concerned.

“He’ll be alright, birdbrains. He’s smart, in a general sense.” MJ cut in, giving Peter a look. 

“Gee, thanks? I guess?” 

“I know, I know. I’ll tell you all about it tonight, if Aunt May lets me out of the house after I break the news. We can meet at that park, or maybe you can come to my place.” Peter rambled as he stood up to go throw his tray in the trash and go to the office. “Harl, you coming?” 

Harley winced at that, standing and saying “At least go with Harls. Harl sounds weird, like you can’t pronounce C’s correctly. And yeah.”

“I don’t know, that kinda sounds like something a parent would say. I’ll just stick to Harley for now.” Peter rolled his eyes. He needed to get good at nicknames, that was a cool thing to do. At least, Mr. Stark would think it was cool. Mr. Stark did it all the time. 

“Sure thing, Mr. Webmaster.”  _ See? _

The office lady looked at them weirdly when they came in, telling them they had already been excused by the principal himself, on behalf of Mr. Stark. He’d made several good points about the kids being unable to concentrate and quite possibly be the source of disruption in classes for the rest of the day, and the principal, starstruck, had agreed.

They stopped by Harley’s conceptual physics class so he could pick up his homework and turn in a project, and then awkwardly stood in front of the front doors. Everyone else was still in the cafeteria, and the empty hallways were kinda creepy. Peter was about to go out the front door when his Spidey Sense tingled, and he peeked out the window instead, stopping Harley from exiting. Sure enough, there were reporters all lined up on the sidewalk, discussing things and shouting over each other. He pulled Harley back, towards the guys’ bathroom in the science wing.

“Reporters.” He hissed. “Come on, I know a better way out anyways.” 

He gave Harley a boost up and out of the window, before crawling up and out, allowing himself to fall to the ground on the other side to make it look like he’d gotten up the wall a normal way. 

“I thought you weren’t athletically inclined, Parker,” Harley smirked down at him, offering him a hand up. “How’d you get up the wall?” 

“Well, when you hang with Spider-Man on the regular, you kinda pick up a few things.” Peter shrugged, allowing himself to be pulled up. 

“Sure. Jesus, you’re heavy.” Harley grunted.

“Blame it on the backpack. Ok, so we’re in a little side alley down the road from the entrance, so you’ll want to turn right and cross the street before heading left, if that’s your direction. I know it’s mine.” Right as Peter was pointing to the nearby alley entrance, a voice shouted at the other end. It was one of the reporters, who’d come back for a quick smoke break. He probably didn’t know who they were, but he did know they were two kids skipping school, and that would automatically get them in trouble. “Run!” Peter yelled, dashing out into the street and skidding around the corner, Harley hot on his heels. The two darted across the street right as the little man turned into a hand, nearly not making it before the cars got a green light and decided two boys in the roadway was not a valid enough reason to stay stopped. 

Peter laughed a little in breathless excitement as they ran down the sidewalk, dodging business people and tourists alike. The reporter hadn’t made it across, and likely wouldn’t pursue, but when they didn’t find either Peter or Harley with the other kids when school got out, he had no doubt they’d put two and two together. When they got far enough away, Peter slowed to a jog and pulled into an alleyway, texting Ned Tony’s cover story for them, saying they got sent home because he knew everyone would bother them. 

Ned replied, saying that MJ would spread it around as subtly as possible while he pretended to play it up, to sell the part. If he didn’t, it would look suspicious. Peter told him to thank MJ, then pocketed his phone, turning back to Harley. 

“You’re probably free to go back to your place now if you want. Sorry, I got a bit carried away. We should only be a few blocks down from the school.” Peter scratched the back of his head, smiling nervously. His chest and ribs hurt from running so long in the binder, but he couldn’t do anything about it right then, so he ignored them. 

“It’s cool, I get it. I’ll see you tomorrow? And good luck breaking the news to your aunt.” He waved, heading off like this was no big deal. Peter smiled, pressing a fist to his chest to calm his heart down.    
“You too.” 

  
  


The confrontation with Aunt May was more dramatic than he’d expected. He entered the apartment quietly, not wanting to wake her if she was asleep, but found her in front of the TV, staring at a frozen screen. His and Harley’s faces were on it. 

“Peter.” She spoke calmly despite her clogged nose and resulting sniff. “What did I do?” 

“W-what do you mean?” He asked shakily, his voice breaking in anxiety. He knew logically there was no reason to be anxious, but her or Ben confronting him about anything always raised his anxiety several notches. 

“What did I do to make you think that you couldn’t trust me, or that I wouldn’t care? I know-” Sniff “I know times have been hard since Ben di-”  _ Sniff,  _ Sniff “since Ben  _ left _ , but not even telling me you got a job? Me having to see it on the news, of all places-” Her voice broke, and she went silent, pulling out a tissue from the box next to her. 

She still hadn’t looked at him. 

He crossed the room, dropping his backpack by the armchair and sliding down to kneel in front of her, trying to get her to look at him. 

“No, no, hey, Aunt May, it wasn’t anything like that, I didn’t even find out until today, I wasn’t expecting to know how to get it. This was news to me too.” The news station automatically unpaused, flipping to a poorly taken video on a cell phone that another student had posted online, portraying his walk of shame from the gym. May watched as Tony made the other students leave him alone, sending him outside with a pat on Ned’s back, and following as quickly as he could. 

“So that was the first you’d heard of it? What about when you figured out the puzzle? Why didn’t you tell me then, if you knew something could come of it?” She leaned forward, hugging her baby to her, making sure not to get snot in his hair. She really was as messy a crier as she was a cooker. 

“Because I wanted to surprise you. I know you’ve been working hard recently to support us, taking extra shifts and whatnot, and I wanted to give you a cool early Christmas present, or late birthday present, or just because present, whatever. You deserve the world, Aunt May, and if I could give it to you… I would. This is just me trying to show my gratitude.” 

To be honest, Peter didn’t mean half of what he said. Well, he did want to surprise her, and she did deserve the world, but if he was honest this wasn’t about gratitude. If he was honest, it was so much more selfish than that. It was about guilt and trying to pay her back for taking the light of her life away. It was about attempting to make himself feel better by pretending to make it up to her when he knew that nothing would ever really make up that loss to her. Not when he knew, that if someone else had been responsible, he wouldn’t have ever been able to forgive them, because nothing they could do would fill the hole Ben left in him. 

“Oh, Peter. You don’t need to do that. This… I get that now it’s only the two of us, things have been hard, but you’re only a kid, only 15. You don’t need to ever feel like you would have to pull your weight here. We’re family. We take care of each other. Now, that said, this is an amazing opportunity, and I really can’t wait to see what you accomplish. You’re the smartest out there, Peter. Only two in the entire nation, wow.” Her laugh was watery, but he could hear the pride in her tone, and her kiss that she pressed to his forehead only worsened his guilt. He felt his eyes tear up and cursed, knowing they hadn’t done that in months, not since the funeral. He just hadn’t been able to, the T quite literally shrinking his tear ducts and making him cry less. That was just one more change that was being reversed, even if it was supposed to be permanent. Christ, he hated this. 

“Ben would have been so proud of you.” And just like that, the five-month dam broke, and both he and his aunt were crying, though for vastly different reasons. It would be alright. They had each other. But it wasn’t alright right now, and that was fine too. 

 

Peter didn’t sleep well that night, which wasn’t surprising in the least. He tossed and turned, his dreams frequented by staring eyes and glowing weapons, the occasional voice getting through. 

_ “The subject is healing quite rapidly. We must study the exact rate, see how much it is affected by nutrition or rest.” _

_ “ _ **_It_ ** _ is not well already, so we have the numbers for under influence of sickness, which when compared with  _ **_it_ ** _ ’s base rate, should give us an answer on how much of an impact the immune system has.” _

_ “We will need to wait and make sure  _ **_it_ ** _ is free of any drugs, though. Those might also affect the immune response.”  _

_ “ _ **_So we wait._ ** _ ”  _

Peter couldn’t decide if being called it was worse than being misgendered. He thought it was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So we've got the introduction of MJ! Low-key gonna have some shit surrounding that little warrior later, but don't worry about it. Y'all will figure it out anyways if you've been paying attention.  
> On another note, those four are my platonic OTP and I'm keeping them, so you can definitely expect to see a proper development of that later, along with a shit ton of memes. So many promises, oof.   
> This fic has been picking up slower than I anticipated, which is interesting. I likely won't be able to post anything for about 2-3 weeks, depending on my internet access(i'm going out of the country for over a week, starting in about a week.) If I figure I can't post, I'll put up next week's chapter a day early, and have tons of content for y'all by the time I get back, hopefully. 
> 
> Expect the angst train to come along sooner or later, bc I'll need to double check the timeline, but I'm pretty sure that our old Vulture pal is gonna pop his head in soon(and by soon I mean in like five chapters or so. God, this is gonna be long. why have I done this to myself?)


	3. Legal Issues and Melodrama

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “The defendant would like to cover the grounds that this employee was violating the company policy of zero-tolerance on discriminatory action of any kind towards individuals or groups on the basis of age, race, religion, creed, color, national origin, sexual orientation, military status, sex, gender identity or expression, marital status or disability, which is in line with local and state standards. The company policy issues one warning before further action is taken, and in the case of Tabitha Graves, this action was the removal of her from a position of power in the company, thus removing the perceived danger from her coworkers and environment. Stark Industries stands by this action and pleads not guilty to either charge.”
> 
> Or
> 
> Repercussions and stress seem to rule Tony's life. There are real consequences for every choice he makes, and even most he doesn't. But getting a bit of appreciation, even just a little, can help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I don’t really know where the “Aunt May works as a nurse” thing came from, for some reason I thought that was her job in Homecoming, I’m probably wrong as all hell but I can’t find a source to confirm or deny so we’re rolling with it.  
> In hindsight, I recognize that I actually wrote a “let’s do it, baby, I know the law” meme into fully-serious fanfic and for that, I apologize. Meme culture is on my brain. Also, I did the best with what I could on the actual court proceedings, because despite how many cases I’ve been a part of, I’ve never actually been to court. If there are any lawyers reading this, I apologize sincerely. Ok that’s enough sorrys, here we go
> 
> PLEASE READ: TRIGGER WARNINGS. Ok this is kinda the start of shit getting serious with the homophobia and transphobia. It will involve homophobic and transphobic slurs, hate speech in the workplace, mentions of incitement of violence, and the attempt to cover all of such with religion, all being addressed in a legal court case. All of such will take place in a workplace setting, except for the bit of covering it with religion. Also, violence against a trans person and rather graphic instances of anxiety attacks and dysphoria.

Tony had checked with Pepper and the board, and low and behold, the anti-discrimination policies, while matching federal guidelines, were not inclusive of gender identity as a separate entity to sex, instead putting both under the label ‘gender’. He frowned, contacted Pepper, and immediately drafted up amendments to include both separately, sending them out to the entire company, against the board’s wishes. But with Tony still heading it as the public face and main designer, and Pepper being CEO, they were quickly cowed into submission. Tony, ever the futurist, figured that was the end of that. He ended up being wrong, as some woman from Marketing was fired two days later for complaining loudly and viciously blaming the trans community, and had the stupidity to sue him for it. 

Pepper tried to reassure him that it would be taken care of, that he wouldn’t need to do anything, but he was appalled enough that someone would try this that he agreed to show up to the court. His lawyers didn’t like it, because anything with him involved made their jobs more complicated, but the two specifically assigned to show up to the courtroom understood. One was a woman, graduated from Harvard at 28 with a doctorate, specializing in the defense of underprivileged citizens. The other was a 40 year old man whose nephew was trans, and had been kicked out by his parents. He lived with other relatives, but the thought that anyone could do that to a child disgusted the man. He could very well see this becoming a landmark case, and he appreciated the fact that Tony knew so and would help it go the right way. 

The case itself was fairly simple, the only complication there being Tony himself. The media was going crazy over it, and Pepper had ensured that the right outlets would get the information first. 

The judge was not pleased to have taken this case, seeing as from most people’s perspective, it was a waste of time. 

“The court is now in session for the trial of Tabitha Graves, who is suing for a violation of constitutional rights and wrongful termination. If we could hear the defendant’s opening statement.” The judge was good enough not to sigh aloud. And the lady(Tabitha Graves, huh?) had gotten good enough lawyers that they’d agreed enough to go up against him, and didn’t even look immediately defeated doing it. Good. She’d need them.

“The defendant would like to cover the grounds that this employee was violating the company policy of zero-tolerance on discriminatory action of any kind towards individuals or groups on the basis of age, race, religion, creed, color, national origin, sexual orientation, military status, sex, gender identity or expression, marital status or disability, which is in line with local and state standards. The company policy issues one warning before further action is taken, and in the case of Tabitha Graves, this action was the removal of her from a position of power in the company, removing the perceived danger from her coworkers and environment. Stark Industries stands by this action and pleads not guilty to either charges.” The male lawyer spoke, calmly rearranging his papers and holding his gaze with the judge the entire time. The judge looked away first, and Tony discreetly gave the man a fist bump for the power move. He checked his nametag: Victor Ramona, he’d have to arrange for him to gain a raise after this. They were already paid handsomely, but to see them in action was another thing altogether, and he certainly gave them a lot of action.( _ eww not like that. Those days were long over. _ ) 

“If we could hear the plaintiff’s opening statement.” The judge continued, sliding his gaze over to the lady sitting across from him. 

“The plaintiff argues both accusations under the violation of the first amendment, under the clause of freedom of religion and speech. The plaintiff’s actions were not labelled as discriminatory towards any of the present members of the audience, and thus did not have any negative consequences as per the ruling in  _ Brandenburg v Ohio _ . The plaintiff continues that she was simply speaking in line and accordance with her religion, and that firing her on the basis of her speech was action against her as a Catholic, which is protected from discrimination. Thus, the plaintiff would like to conclude the effort made on behalf of Stark Industries is in direct violation of the law and their own policies, and that her manager be punished accordingly and she receive financial compensation for the court proceedings and lawyer costs, as well as for the wrongful termination.” 

They had done their research. Tony was almost impressed, except he had evidence contrary to almost every one of their statements made. He’d actually worked with his lawyers for once to determine and gather it. 

“The court has heard both opening statements and will now proceed to the evidence. If the plaintiff would start.” 

The woman’s lawyers stood, looking pained. “The plaintiff would like to call the first witness to the stand as the plaintiff.” 

_ Jesus, this woman’s got guts. She does know who she’s dealing with, right? I literally defended weapons of mass destruction from government hands five years ago. I haven’t been to court since, but this is beyond ridiculous. _

The woman stepped up to the stand, swearing to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. “Lie.” Tony muttered, catching the slight smirk from his lawyers in response. She went through giving her perspective of the incidents leading up to her being fired, and started on the questions. 

“Ms. Graves, do you believe your speech was discriminatory against certain persons with regards to gender identity or expression, or sexual orientation?” Her lawyers questioned, asking the obvious.

“Nope.” 

“Ms. Graves, can you repeat what you said in the first incident regarding the change in policy, brought on by Stark Industries?” 

“I believe it was something like, ‘I can’t believe Stark is defending gay men in dresses. This is ridiculous. My church would never stand for this.’” Tony smirked, standing smoothly.  _ Gotcha. _

“Objection, your honour.” 

“Objection sustained. What is it, Stark?” 

He smirked, pulling on his sunglasses with FRIDAY’s display. “The defense has video and audio evidence contradicting the plaintiff’s statement. If you would allow us, we would show it.” The screen had already been wheeled in. The whole scene was starting to remind him a lot of his issue with Hammer and the military.

  
  


When the judge nodded to him, he muttered “Go ahead FRIDAY. Show them.” The screen turned on and started playing the scene, the woman standing near two fellow workers, reading the notice posted in the break room informing them all of the change in policy. The woman was muttering to the others, but her words came out clear as day to the audience. 

“Goddamn liberals.”

“What?”

“Can’t believe Stark is defending those fags in drag. This country has turned into a fucking nightmare.”

“You- what the fuck, Graves? I thought you were cool.”

“Not you too. Don’t defend those trannies, they deserve to get some sense knocked into them. Or just be taken out completely. Absolutely disgusting.”

“I hope you know this is going to be reported.” 

“What the fuck, are you too much of a pussy to handle the truth? Can’t take a fucking joke? Do it, and I make your life hell. Fucking faggot.” 

Tony paused the video, taking a deep breath. He hadn’t watched it himself, hadn’t wanted to. He still got called that, and it was one of the worst things people used against him. He couldn’t let them know that, obviously. But the whole situation was awful.

“This was not Ms. Graves’ first issue, but it was her first within a year, so we issued a warning, as per our company policy. The speech she provided was not in line with the truth, and was not in any way religious or religion-oriented. I can call witnesses to the stand if you would like, confirming this, your Honour.” 

“That is fine. I think the video speaks for itself, after all. Defence, if you could continue.” The judge, more than aware that Stark himself was not straight, and that the sensitive material could very well have affected him or others, pressed forward. The defence lawyers looked faintly ill, but continued. 

“Do you, Ms. Graves, testify that your second offence was linked directly to your religion, and not targeted at groups under the protections previously mentioned?” 

“I testify that it was directly linked to my religion.” A non-answer. Not the whole truth. This was frustrating enough to give Tony a headache. 

“Can you please repeat you part of the second encounter, that got you fired?”

“I asked my coworker if he was a tranny. He refused to talk to me, so I asked again. When another coworker got involved, I repeated the verses that we had read in church, banning and condemning trannies.”

Tony stood, slamming his hand down. He wasn’t playing anymore. “Objection.” 

“Objection sustained. What now, Stark?” 

“The witness is not being literal, nor is she answering the question. If you would allow it, I have video and audio evidence from the second scene as well.” 

The judge nodded, sighing. Graves looked like she wanted to protest, but Tony stared her down, physically raising the remote and pressing play. FRIDAY had already switched over the video, showing her standing over the coworker from before, in his cubicle. She obviously wasn’t doing any work, and seemed intent on getting his attention. 

“Are you a tranny, Wilson?”

“Leave me alone.”   
“I asked if you were a tranny. You know, if you weren’t, you would have said so.”

“Leave me alone.”

“I suppose that would make you a girl, then. Congrats, you even fooled me. But I can tell, now. What’s your real name? Patricia?”

“I’m filing a harassment complaint right now.” 

“Why? I’m just asking. You know, the Bible states that ‘A woman shall not wear a man's garment, nor shall a man put on a woman's cloak, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord, your God.’ So you should be wearing a dress right now.”

“One. You’re wearing slacks. Pants. A man’s garment, as you so call it. Two, leave me the fuck alone.”

“Ooh, you cursed at me. I’m going to go file a harassment claim. And mine might actually get attention, because I’m not an attention-seeking, cock-sucking faggy tranny.” She hissed, turning on her heel and running smack dab into two security officers. They escorted her off the scene. 

Tony paused the footage, clearing his throat. 

  
  


“As you can see, the only religious context here was that made to mock others. The statements and discriminatory actions did have direct consequences for the individuals involved, and the basis for firing her was upon those actions. I would also like to include that our discrimination policy does not matter in regards to who the initiator is in the situation. Hell, if she were making racist remarks we wouldn’t even be here right now. To be honest, lady? I don’t care if you hate trans or gay people ‘religiously’. Regardless of how you opinions, you exhibited behavior that was harmful to those around you, especially targeting this specific group of people. That is not accepted at Stark Industries, so we fired you. Now, your honour, I would like to call in one of my witnesses. You will recognize him as the brave employee that is in these videos, Tristan Wilson.”

The judge sighed, giving the go-ahead. They weren’t getting anything good out of her anyways. She spluttered and cried crocodile tears when being lead back to her seat, but the trial was practically over. And she had lost. 

Tristan Wilson took the stand, and when prompted, gave his side. 

“I would like to start off by saying I am neither transgender nor gay. I am cisgender and heterosexual, and do not belong in the LGBTQ community, unlike Mr. Stark.” He nodded over to Tony, respect in his eyes. It almost made Tony smile, because it was rarely acknowledged outside of those who hated him. He nodded at the man, who continued. “Nevertheless, this woman’s hate affected me. She verbally assaulted me on several occasions, though those were the only two within reach of video surveillance. I have been a long time ally to the community, and I figured so long as I could keep her attention on me, it would take it off of those more vulnerable that I knew about. Her misgendering and forcing stereotypes and slurs on me was still extremely harmful, but I preferred to be able to deal with it that would not place others in danger. I am glad Mr. Stark and those in higher positions were able to bring attention and stop this as swiftly as they could, because even as it is, I will be spending more time with my therapist now than I have in the past two years since my wife died.”

The lawyers on the other side sensed a weak point in his tale.

“Mr. Wilson, may we ask why you did not inform her of your identity as cisgender, at least?”

“Well for one, it was none of her business. My identity, what I am, has no bearing whatsoever on her ability to do her work. It has no bearing on our relationship as coworkers, and I definitely did not consent to a relationship beyond that. For two, if I did that, she would do one of two things. She would accuse me of lying, or she would target somebody else. Either way, she would get attention and engagement, neither of which I wanted to give to her.”

The plaintiff judges launched into a round of volleying on whether the footage used was valid evidence(it was) and if they could still pursue their violation of the first amendment claim(they couldn’t). By the end of it, the judge very nearly had his head in his hands and Tony was  _ this close _ to standing on the table to yell at the woman. 

“Alright. Order in the court!” The man finally yelled, and Victor pulled him down into his seat, handing him his water bottle. He chugged it angrily, not happy with the way the opposite side had handled his witnesses(admittedly, he’d kind of hijacked their ‘witness’ but that was bullshit anyways)

“I have heard enough, and I’m sure the jury has heard more than enough. We will break for deliberation, and come back when the jury has decided.” With that, it was out of his hands. The news crews started talking all at once, trying to recap what had happened for those who just tuned in. Tony’s headache hit him full force, and he staggered a little bit, the other lawyer touching his arm softly to ensure he didn’t bump into anyone. 

“I think that’s enough play for today, don’t you two? Let’s go hide in a room somewhere and take a nap. Well, I’ll nap. You two can do whatever you want, so long as it isn’t too loud, and you wake me when we go back inside.” He announced distractedly, already having FRIDAY scan the room they had for bugs and pulling out the uncomfortable chair from the table and slumping into it, propping his feet up and putting his sunglasses on. 

He wasn’t actually going to sleep, there could be threats at any moment, not to mention he didn’t trust them, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t rest. It was an hour and a half of him doing trigonometric equations sleepily and graphing them in his head(like the sin curve of Steve’s ass, that was one of his favorite equations.) before they were let back into the room. FRIDAY automatically darkened the lenses of the glasses for him, but he wasn’t allowed to have earbuds or anything in while court was in session. 

“The jury has decided. What decision has the jury come to?” The judge asked, almost rhetorically.

The first juror stood, clearing his throat awkwardly. “The jury finds the defendant not guilty of any crimes against the civil rights or liberties of Tabitha Graves, nor do we find the defendant guilty of any other charges previously placed against Stark Industries.” 

“Well, there you have it. For wasting all of our time, I proclaim that Tabitha Graves pay for any and all payroll fees and court fines for Mr. Stark and his lawyers.”

“Objection.” Tony raised his hand lazily, smirking. The judge sighed.

“We are far past the time of objections, but go ahead, Stark.” 

“Well, the payroll for these two alone for this case would be well into the millions, and I’m paid millions by the second. After this, Miss Tabitha Graves wouldn’t be able to afford that for another 40 years, at least. I suggest giving her a choice. She can commit to paying that, and screw her life over, or she can swear, here in this court, to not attempt an appeal, and agree that this case sets a precedent for any other situations that arise in this manner. Of course, her approval does not matter, but if it gives her an opportunity to live a life that isn’t in debt, I’m sure she’ll be tempted.”

“What do you think of this, Miss Graves?” The judge asked. It was unprecedented, but so was practically everything about Tony Stark.

“I… accept.” She muttered, staring at her lap. He wasn’t going to let her go with just that, though.

“Now what do you say to the nice man who just saved your life after a stupid decision almost ruined it?” He smirked, but he knew his eyes were cold, colder than they’d ever been. 

“Stark.” The judge warned, but didn’t say any more. She’d have to defend herself.

“Thank you, Mr. Stark.” The satisfaction that ran through his veins was purely animalistic, petty and almost unwarranted, but he didn’t care. This wasn’t something he was ever going to compromise on, and he would destroy the next person who thought they could go against him on this, without hesitation. This was his  _ restraint _ . 

He turned to the reporters, the cameras all staring him in the face. So much attention, it felt lonely. 

“Let this be a lesson. Nothing gives you the right to tell other people how to live their lives. Nothing. Not religion, not a misplaced sense of superiority. There are only rules for yourself. You can only rule yourself. And if you try to do otherwise? I’ll be waiting.” He paused for dramatic effect, looking into the cameras. “Recognize the real hero of this case: Tristan Wilson. That man is an amazing ally. Learn from him, know his ways. Be the padawan to his Yoda, all of that. I’m leaving now.” 

The shout of “COURT ADJOURNED.” followed him through the double doors as he made his way to where Happy was waiting outfront the courthouse. He was tired, his head hurt, he wanted a nap, and nothing else was planned for the rest of the day. He was going home. 

_ Fuck, that was exhausting. _

 

He was only awoken by a silent alarm, and FRIDAY’s voice informing him that they have an intruder. He’d barely woken up when there was a crashing in the vents and Clint dropped down into his room, shouting “TONY!”

“What? I’m fine. The fuck are you doing in here, Barton?” He rolled over, sitting up and pulling on a T-shirt in one move.

“FRIDAY said there was an intruder in your floor and that you were sleeping, and we aren’t allowed on your floor but everyone was getting worried, because you know, how’d an intruder get into the building, much less all the way up here?” He paused to breathe, before continuing. He had surveilled the room as he spoke, and decided it safe. “So then Nat told me about the emergency access vents you had installed for me to all the Avenger’s floors, which thank you, by the way. So I came up here to ensure you weren’t drugged and kidnapped and tortured within an inch of your life.”

“Okay, while I appreciate your concern for my well being, I was having a very nice dream about cupcakes, and I’m not currently wearing pants.” 

“Are you wearing underwear?”

“Yeah.” 

“Well there you go then. Summon up a suit, we’ve got to find the intruder. Besides, I’ve seen you in less.”

“Most people have.” He muttered, standing and stretching. Clint wistled, and Tony smirked. “I know, it’s a nice ass, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is. Pepper is a lucky woman. Shame someone is after said nice ass.” Clint smirked, looking away as he surveilled the room again. There was a tapping on the window, and Tony jumped. Clint, being a super spy, didn’t, but he had an arrow out and pointing to the window faster than Tony could blink, so that practically counted. 

Of course, the tapping had to be an annoying pigeon that Tony had recently designed a suit for. 

“Oh. It’s Spider-Kid.” Clint lowered his bow slowly, but kept the arrow notched. “Your call, dude. What do you want to do?”

“God, I just wanted to nap in peace. Let him in, FRIDAY.” Tony said, turning to pull on some pants. 

“Hey Mr. Stark, I was just dropping by to talk to you, and-oh. Hi Mr. Clint. What are you doing in here?”

“FRIDAY said Tony was being attacked.” He frowned, looking around. “That wouldn’t happen to be you, would it?”

Before the kid could say anything, Tony stepped in. “No, she said there was the intruder. FRIDAY, is this the intruder you detected?” 

“Yes, boss.” 

“Okay, well register him as an occasional visitor then, with access to the Avenger’s public floor and the conference rooms below. Kid, there’s a balcony on the public floor that Thor uses to beam himself in. You can use that to enter, so you don’t keep freaking out my AI and team.”

“Oh, okay. Thank you, Mr. Stark. FRIDAY, can you apologise to the team for me, for startling them?” Clint snorted at how kind that was. Tony agreed, it was crazy how considerate this kid was. 

“Apologise to them? It was my nap.” Tony grumbled, smirking to show the kid he didn’t mean it. 

“I’m sorry, Mr. Stark, I didn’t realize you were old enough to need naps. Soon, you’ll be in diapers again. I’ll be sure to get Ms. Potts the extra odor-resistant ones.” 

Tony’s jaw dropped, offended to his vibranium core. “Just for that, Underoos, I’m not inviting you to my lab.”

“What? You were going to invite me to your lab?” The shock made all teasing drop out of the kid’s voice, but Tony wasn’t an amateur. 

“I was going to go over suit design for you, but not anymore. It’s fine, I’ll have your buddy Peter stop by. He seems to know what he’s doing anyways.” At the mention of Peter, the kid tensed, tilting his head. 

“So you got ahold of him, huh?” 

“What do you mean? Have you not been following the news? Or like, anything I do? He was one of the two to complete the challenge I set up online. For the internships? Did he not talk about that, like, at all? I guess I wasn’t as big an impact as I thought I was. Man, that’s humbling.” Tony did actually feel a bit hurt about that, mostly because he wasn’t expecting it. But that was fine, he had no need or particular want to be the kid’s idol anyways. It’s not like he was a good role model. 

“An internship position, huh? And no, I meant about the suit stuff specifically, of course I knew about the competition. The only reason I didn’t try my hand was because I was afraid of you finding out my identity. And I haven’t actually had the chance to sit down and talk with him since you announced it, he’s been swamped. Didn’t trust the phones not to be hacked or something. I thought you’d release a statement by now on that? Anyways, again, not what I came here for.” The kid smacked himself upside the head for getting distracted again, then raised his finger like he’d remembered. 

“It was about Peter. I wanted to thank you.”

Tony felt his eyebrows near his hairline with that one.

“What do you mean, thank me? Why? I mean, I’ve done many things that deserve thanks, but what specifically?” 

“The trial, earlier today. It would have been swept under the rug, I know it would have. I’m really just thankful you brought attention to it instead, making it clear that you wouldn’t tolerate that. It meant a lot to Peter, and it means a lot to me. He gets so much shit for just trying to be who he is. Having something like that, someone like you, come out and publicly put a face in opposition? It means a lot. So, thank you.” Clint looked up at that, snapping his fingers. 

“Oh yeah, the trial. That was some fucking bullshit, my dude, you handled that well. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, what with you being a public figure, but I definitely would have lost patience so much sooner, and not have spared her.” 

Tony noticed the kid’s cheeks move, smiling under the mask. “Yeah, I totally would have gone off on her ass. Willful ignorance is one thing, albeit bad in and of itself, but then trying to pretend you didn’t do shit? In front of your boss, Tony Stark himself? The man who literally revolutionized technology? She was a whole other kind of stupid.” 

_ Wow. So the kid is a fan. I really shouldn’t be as happy as I am right now. _

“Well, she was smart enough to get good lawyers. Unfortunately for her, good just isn’t good enough against me.” He masked the praise and thanks, deflecting as he usually did. The kid had come all the way out here just to thank him, and Tony didn’t know what that meant, except a growing attachment that Tony wasn’t sure he wanted. He couldn’t mentor the kid right now, not with two new kids coming into the picture, as well as the Accords, and trying to deal with the situation regarding the policy changes, and trying to figure out a way to keep the kids safe while in a highly dangerous environment, and try to keep off of Pepper’s toes. 

“You right. Anyways, Mr. Stark. That’s all I came to say. I don’t know, I just feel like nobody thanks you for all you do for us. So, uh. Thank you. Ok, I’ll go now. Toodledo!” And with that, the kid jumped out of the 98th story window. Tony felt his heart stop, even as he knew the kid would likely swing to safety. It freaked Clint out, though, enough for him to rush to the window and watch the kid swing away. 

“He was right, you know. You did a good thing. Not many would stand up and protest that so loudly, not like you did.”

“I did what every good person would do-” Tony started, hating this conversation, but Clint cut him off softly.

“No, I don’t think they would. Most people would stand aside or quietly state their opinions. They would aim for compromise. And in this situation, compromise isn’t an option. I can’t say I know what it’s like, but seeing that video… It was awful. I wouldn’t ever want my kids to be treated like that if they turned out to be gay, or any other sexuality, or trans. I just. God. Anyways, I’ll see you later. I’m leaving before this conversation gives either of us hives, and so you can’t deflect.” With that, he jumped up, grabbing the lip of the vents and doing a body crunch to pull himself up. Tony whistled in response, and his answering chuckle echoed back as he made his way through the vents. He sighed, returning the vent cover to its place, glad he’d thought of magnetic covers instead of the usual screw type. 

“FRIDAY, what’s on my to-do list?”

“You have modifications to your secondary lab to oversee, ensuring the safety of our new minions. You have a scheduled time to talk with the Senate tomorrow morning, starting at 9 AM. You have yet to do the required research on vigilante children for said talk. You need to schedule a day next week to meet with the parents of the potential minions, and send out that press release regarding their position and reward, as well as officially announcing them. You also have a board meeting for Stark Industries on Monday morning to discuss the fallout of said court case, as there have been 15 more anti-discriminatory claims made. I have followed up with security footage and only one appears to be a case that has not been recurring. Following the talk to the Senate, another meeting will be arranged to discuss the reformed and new wording of the next version of the Accords, as well as a gala hosted by Stark Industries to gain back any and all influence lost-” 

“Okay, okay. That’s enough, FRIDAY. I get it.” Tony ran a hand down his face, groaning. It was 5:30 PM, and he had approximately 15.5 hours to get his speech ready for the Senate. He was going off of notecards, because he had to, because Pepper was going to kill him if he didn’t. The construction for the lab could wait until this weekend; he’d pay the workers double to stay late and get it done in the two days. It was just the one floor, with vibranium-enhanced shutters turning it into the most secure panic room in the world, besides what could be found in Wakanda. The floor was mostly two labs, separated by a wall of glass that he’d engineered back when he thought that he and Bruce could be lab buddies. They were, now, but it was on a different floor, with a Hulk-proof(sort of) setup, because the number one trigger for the Hulk was danger, and being in a lab with Tony Stark was dangerous, there was no way around it. “Tell Romanoff and Capsicle to meet me in the grand room, we need a plan of action, and I was never the header for those.” 

“They’re on their way, boss. And might I say, it is quite wonderful to see you being appreciated for your work.” 

“Yeah, yeah, it’s about time.” He grumbled, pulling up the documents on his display as he walked. To any other person, it looked like he was motioning to thin air, but his glasses gave them the appearance of depth while still keeping confidential matters, well. Confidential. 

“Indeed, boss.” Parts of the talk were going to be televised, and he needed to make sure what he said counted. That was what Cap was for, the man having past experience performing for a crowd and putting on a show. Natasha, too, but he was consulting her on the other subtleties of the system, like the manipulation of hostile targets. He had a decent amount of experience with it himself, but he was out of practice, not having to do it since he took over the company from Obie. Those first two years were nothing but assassination attempts and contempt pouring itself into every glass he drank. 

He’d stopped caring how they felt after that, and attempted to get his life the way he wanted it, full of parties and false love, but it hadn’t worked. His every attempt at side projects other than weapons were diverted, dismissed.  _ “Humanitarianism doesn’t suit you, Stark.” _

_ Well, it’s a good thing this is purely selfish, for once. _

  
  
  
  


Note: Starts at the beginning of the day, Thursday, same day as the trial. 

Peter was used to being the outcast of the school. He wasn’t used to questions left and right, people swarming him in the halls before he had a chance to get to his locker. MJ helped, frog-marching him and Ned to their lockers(because Ned really was no help, for all that he was a good friend). Peter was too short to see over the crowd, but MJ wasn’t, and her frown at something in the distance made Peter gulp. 

“Keener isn’t getting swarmed. You guys should take some tips from him. I’m gonna go check up, make sure he hasn’t stabbed anybody. You idiots don’t get into trouble.” She promptly shoved her way through the crowd, ignoring their shouts and irritation, and leaving Peter and Ned alone. 

“So, Penis! How’d you do it? How’d you hack the system?” Peter groaned, turning to Flash. 

“I didn’t hack the system, it was a contest set up specifically by Mr. Stark. I’m worse at coding than you, I wouldn’t be able to hack into his system without him knowing it-” 

“No, no. Not that. There’s no way you’re smart enough to do that. I meant the system, Mr. Stark’s display. How’d you fool him into thinking you’re a boy?” Peter felt the floor drop out from under him. For how close everyone was, they were suddenly really far away, muffled and too loud all at once. Peter couldn’t think, Peter couldn’t  _ think- _

“Peter didn’t have to. Mr. Stark’s not an idiot, so he didn’t assume he knew Peter beter than Peter knew himself. You know, exactly what you’re fucking doing,  _ Eugene _ ?” Ned spat, actually angry. Peter wished someone would come, clear all the people away. Ned was in Flash’s face, yelling right back, and the crowd was chanting, and everything was  _ tooloudtoobright. _

But nobody came. Flash pushed Ned against the lockers, and nobody came. Ned pushed back, snarling, and nobody came. Peter wanted desperately to break through the haze that was engulfing his mind, freezing his body, to help his friend. But he was trapped on the edge of the crowd, watching as the fight got uglier and uglier, a fight that had been coming since he had stepped in between the two of them, a grand total of ten years old, pigtails and a loud mouth. A fight that had been coming since Flash’s sneer in disgust when he started freshman year a boy, a Peter, instead of a  ********* . A fight he should have prevented. 

In the end, it wasn’t somebody coming to break it up, coming to the rescue, that stopped it. It was a hand, shoving him headfirst into the fray. A punch from Flash to his eye that left it swollen and bleeding despite being more robust than a normal person and the bell ringing marked the end of it, as Peter had been on the receiving end of the only fist thrown, the only hit. The mark of guilt. 

The rest of the crowd wandered off to their classes as Ned immediately turned to Peter, checking up on him, making sure he was okay. His voice was lowered, whispering apologies as he helped Peter sit with his back against the lockers. 

“God, I’m so sorry Peter. That was stupid of me. I made the wrong choice, and you got hurt, fuck, I’m sorry. Come on, let’s get you some ice from the nurse. Maybe we can see-”

“No.” Peter croaked, clearing his throat. “No nurse, don’t want the nurse. She’ll figure out my powers.”

“Fuck, fuck. Okay yeah, that makes sense. What do you need, how can I help? Do you want to go to class, Do you want to go hide in the bathroom? Somewhere quiet?” Ned’s fluttering around nervously helped calm Peter, and he reached out and grabbed one of Ned’s hands, holding it. 

“Class. But don’t let go? At least until we get there.” He stood with Ned’s help, allowing a hug.  _ Safe. Secure. Ned’s okay. _

“Of course, Peter. Anything you need.” Ned held his hand, gripping it tightly. It was grounding, and helped Peter gain the courage to walk those next few steps, remembering that moving is okay. The post-anxiety chest pain was back, but there was no way Peter was taking off his binder after that. He’d just have to forego Spider-Man that night. He could mostly see out of both eyes by the end of first period, the injured one never quite reaching the point of fully swollen shut. Healing this quickly was going to be a pain to explain to MJ and Harley. His third period was Government, and Peter really just wanted to lay down his head and sleep through the class, but the teacher was excited because Mr. Stark had a court case of some sort going through. He mentioned it regarding Mr. Stark’s new policy change on “political correctness and pleasing the liberals”, but any chance to show the students a court case live was exciting for him, so he allowed it. 

The balant homophobia and transphobia in the videos that were shown made his anxiety spike, and he felt Ned tense and curl into himself every time a slur was used, but Mr. Stark handled it like a champ. He refused to back down, and pulled a complete power move at the end by even allowing the woman a second chance. It wasn’t going to make him popular, but Peter understood why he did it. It was to ensure that this wasn’t allowed to be taken to a higher court, especially one that might rescind the decision in the woman’s favor. Mr. Stark was making a big deal of it now, so he didn’t have to later, and addressing the problem immediately after the case went out. It had the added bonus of shutting down any certain bully who felt the need to establish smart people were transphobic, too. Peter had a lot of courage as Spider-Man, with Tony Stark’s backing on multiple things, but he wasn’t Spider-Man every day, from day to day. And this? This put courage through Peter Parker, not Spider-Man. 

Courage enough to reply as Peter Parker when his teacher called out mockingly at the end of the video, “Well, Ms. Parker? Was that liberal enough for you?” 

“Actually, it’s Mr. Parker, sir. And yes. It was.” Ned’s fistbump under the table was totally worth the detention he got for correcting the teacher in front of the class.

The rest of the day was a whirlwind. He wasn’t pushed in the hallways, and the people that came up to him seemed a lot more respectful, with actual questions. He always answered them with the cover story, or if that didn’t work, simply shrug and say “It’s classified.” 

Not even Flash’s taunting at the end of the day upset him, when he called him a charity case. It upset Ned, but Peter just brushed the bully off, airily making remarks about how jealousy was the ugliest emotion, and MJ gave him a look that was seemingly approving. He couldn't quite tell why it seemed approving, but he took it as a sign that he was starting to be able to tell her expressions apart. She’d immediately gone back to drawing Flash’s face, but he was sure it had happened. Man, his new friends were weird. Harley had scowled through the whole thing, but hadn’t spoken up, all too aware of how he’d easily become a target. 

They’d walked to and sat with him in detention, not wanting to leave him alone after what had happened in the hallway. He’d become at higher risk for retaliation than usual, even with Flash getting a hit in on him. His eye was close to yellowing, so everyone assumed it wasn’t that big a deal. That assumption was better than them figuring out he had advanced healing, though , so he’d just wait it out and see if Aunt May didn’t have any makeup that could resemble a black eye for tomorrow, to keep up his identity. Of course, that would require telling May a lot more than he was comfortable, so he’d just hope and pray that it would remain relatively not far along, at least until the weekend. Maybe he can say he covered it up with makeup when he didn’t? That would be more believable. 

Peter sighed, forgetting his surroundings and slumping forward on the desk. He was so damn tired… 

_ Uncle Ben? Uncle Ben! Guess what! Tony Stark knows me, he came by school, I’m going to intern for him! _

_ “That’s great… Peter. You’ve got… big things… ahead of you …Goodbye, Peter.” _

_ Uncle Ben? Wait! Come back…  _

Peter jerked upright, flinching away from the hand that came to wake him. His eyes burned and he scrubbed at his nose viciously, not wanting to think about that. Sleeping was the worst. Dreams were the worst. He always forgot the bad stuff until it was too late when he was dreaming, allowing him the hope and excitement he’d normally have, before the person was ripped away. Nightmares were better. At least they didn’t make him happy before tearing it away again, even if they didn’t let him wake up until they were finished with him. Peter wasn’t even sure what he dreamed about, exactly, only that there was a gaping hole in his chest that wasn’t going to go away any time soon and it felt like someone had shoved the knife that had caused it right back in. 

“Peter, detention is over. We can go.” The voice was soft, Ned’s, and Peter allowed him a watery smile. Ned guided him over to the door where the other two were waiting, stoically ignoring Peter’s teary face as they guided him down the halls. The school always had an odd energy after hours, even if they had only been in the classroom for an hour. The light came through the windows differently, and the echoes down the empty hallways were extremely different from those with teenagers running back and forth all over the place, talking loudly. Peter wasn’t sure if he liked the silence better, not when the place was supposed to be full of energy. He stared up at the sky peeking through the windows above the lockers. It was 4:30 pm, still early fall, so the sun hadn’t begun to set yet, but the sky was a darker blue than he was used to, and he found himself disoriented. 

The four parted ways in front of the school, Ned and MJ heading right, while Harley and Peter headed off in the other direction. Peter didn’t want to go home to the empty apartment, not yet. He couldn’t just go off in a random direction to an ally to change, not with Harley trailing behind him. The kid was younger, but half a head taller already, and Peter felt an unwarranted spark of jealousy at the observation. He hadn’t actually compared, but he was pretty sure he was even shorter than Mr. Stark, and Mr. Stark was really well known for being short. 

He changed into the suit as soon as he got home, ignoring his promise to himself that he wouldn’t go out that night, and slipped out the window. He breathed deeply, taking in the clean, fresh air that the suit filtered for him, since he was often at smog level. 

He pushed his shoulders back, ignoring the pain in his ribs and the slight pain in his abdomen, and donned the mask of Spider-Man, setting off. He had things to do, starting with a visit to Stark Tower. The man deserved some recognition for his accomplishments. 

Peter’s visit to the Tower(he wasn’t sure what they were calling it at the moment, it seemed to change based on who was annoying Tony at the time.) was successful, and he had time to kill. He still felt weird, empty. His chest had that jagged hole in it, and his ribs were making their presence firmly known after almost 12 hours of binding, but he wasn’t done. He couldn’t go home. Not yet. Instead, he headed to one of the other skyscrapers, wanting to get a picture of the view of the city as the sun was setting. The clear skies had been a welcome change, even if it wasn’t going to last, so Peter took his opportunity. 

He’d just reached the top of Oscorp Tower(a measly 60 stories, but still head and shoulders above the rest) as the sun was at the peak moment for the photo shoot. 

“Hey, can you take a still frame of everything I can see right now? Like, a screenshot or something?” He asked the AI, who’d been seemingly silent except for when she greeted him as he put on the suit. 

“I can indeed. Snapshot Protocol initiated. All you have to do is say ‘Snapshot’ when you want a photo taken.” Peter didn’t comment on his surprise that such a protocol existed. It made sense in hindsight, to document crime scenes and evidence for later. Still, this was fine too. 

“Snapshot. And thank you.” He added, not sure whether the AI was advanced enough to care, like FRIDAY. 

“You’re welcome, Spider-Man.” She replied, then fell silent. Well, it had been worth a shot. He sat on the ledge, watching the clouds come in off the coast and the sun sink. When he finally decided he was done, something in him smoothed over just a bit at the peacefulness of the city from above, he simply leaned forward off the edge, waiting for a second in free fall before shooting a web. The second felt like the longest in his life, but it felt right, the freedom. He hovered around the feeling when he was transitioning webs, but there was nothing quite so silencing, so final, as a freefall. He got to the apartment around eight, eating a slightly late dinner, before finally taking off his binder and getting to work on his homework with a dysphoria hoodie that used to be Ben’s and an Iron Man blanket wrapped around himself. He ignored his phone until he was done with his assignments, climbing into bed and curling around his phone. 

Ned had created a group chat with the four of them, and called it the  _ Meme Scream Team _ , to which MJ had immediately rolled her eyes. She hadn’t sent the emoji, but her sarcastic text held a very strong “you’re an idiot” energy, so Peter was pretty sure she’d rolled her eyes. Nevertheless, the three of them had quickly devolved into meme-only communication, following the title of the chat. Peter scrolled through it for a bit, snorting at some of the ones Harley pulled (accurate, but ridiculously out of date, someone needed to update the dude), before he moved on to his other messages. There was one from May, a funny anecdote on how her coworker had forgotten to put his shoes back on after his nap, and kept slipping on the floors. 

And then there were two in a separate group chat. It was untitled, and contained Harley and  _ ohmygodit’sTonyStark _ . Peter nearly dropped his phone in surprise, having a few issues processing the fact that he could text  _ Tony Stark _ . He had a minor freakout, which involved rolling over onto his other side in excitement and grinning at his phone for a bit, and then he actually read the messages. They were short and to the point. Harley had created the chat with a:

**Harley:** So, are we going to plan this thing, or what?

**Tony Stark:** sorry kiddos im pretty busy for the next 1.5 days ill let you know when i have a set schedule -TS

_ Is it too late to reply? They were sent over two hours ago. Maybe they thought it was weird that he hadn’t replied though. Maybe he was worried. He couldn’t just not reply to a text from  _ the Tony Stark _. He was too important. _ Biting his lip, Peter started typing out a message.

**Me:** I still need to get my aunt’s schedule anyways :). There’s no rush :)

Peter sent it, before facepalming at the overuse of emoticons. At least he hadn’t used emojis, they were just cringy. Before he could do anything, however, a new message came in. It was a photo from Tony, a landscape shot of an annoyed looking Natasha Romanoff and a mildly angry Steve Rogers, who had a finger raised in the Lecturing Position and his mouth open. Both were looking behind the camera. 

**Tony Stark:** say hi kids -TS

Peter dropped his phone in surprise, fumbling with it on the bed before he finally got a hold and picked it up to stare at the screen. 

**Me:** alksdndjnfldkajk

**Tony Stark:** wtf are you ok kid -TS

 

Harley whisper-chatted him, distracting him from the group chat for a moment.

**Harley:** did you seriously just keysmash at Tony?

**Me:** It was an accident!!!! I dropped my phone!!!!

**Me:** those are the Avengers!!!!

**Me:** holy shit!!!!!

When Harley didn’t reply, he looked back at the group chat, only to find Harley had betrayed him.

**Harley:** He means to say hi for him. He’s fine. 

**Me:** NO I DON’T but if you could that would be awesome thank you Mr. Stark. I’m fine, I just dropped my phone

**Tony Stark:** chill out kid, they say hi back -TS

Peter rolled over onto his back, a minor squeaking noise coming from his mouth. He was totally not fanboying. No, totally not. 

**Me:** Oh my God this is the best day of my life

**Me:** Okay you’re working, I’ll stop bothering you Mr. Stak. Oh my god

**Tony Stark:** its Stark kid but thanks -TS

**Me:** Oh my god, typo, so sorry Mr. Stark

 

The chat went quiet, neither of the other two replying. Peter had the distinct feeling that Harley was either laughing his ass off or judging him harshly. He soon got his answer when the Meme Scream Team chat popped up.

**Harley:** Peter just crashed and burned in a chat with Tony Stark. Press f to pay respects

**MJ:** f

**Ned:** f

**Harley:** He definitely needs some milk

**Me:** guys not fair he sent us a picture of the AVENGERS

**Me:** he was in a meeting and he totally texted us anyways

**MJ:** wow

**Ned:** DUDE YOU WERE IN A CHAT WITH TONY STARK. THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE. >:( >:( >:(

**MJ:** he’s not that great

**Me:** the photo had Black Widow in it

**MJ:** well what are you waiting for send it!!!

**Ned:** yeah dude come on!!!!

**Harley:** yeah, dude. What are you waiting for? Lol

Peter saved and sent the picture, making it his new background while he was at it.

**Harley:** Oh my god, they were roommates

**MJ:** that’s Power™ right there

**Ned:** DUDE what even is your life!!!!

**Me:** I don’t even know, man. 

**Me:** I’ve got hw and freaking out to do, i’ll ttyl

**Ned:** Yeah sure man lol, go get that bread

 

Peter sighed, turning off his phone and dropping it on the bed next to him. Now that the rush of excitement was gone, he couldn’t help but feel… nothing. He was empty again, everything feeling like it was too big and not big enough at the same time. His body was too close, feeling like the silicone fake stuff they used to make fake faces and injuries in movies, stretched over a fragile glass jar. His chest was heavy, extra weight, his hips and thighs too wide, his waist pulled tight over the glass. And inside, he was a minute from breaking. He didn’t quite understand why he felt this way. 

It had been a good day, the best day, in fact. He’d been defended by Tony Stark, of all people, had gotten to meet him and Hawkeye again. He’d managed to defend himself to his teacher. He’d made a new friend, two new friends. Why couldn’t he appreciate that? Why did it feel like every time he opened his mouth, his voice betrayed him? He couldn’t focus. Nothing felt right anymore. Nothing ever felt right anymore. 

Ben would have sat with him, if he was here. He would have ruffled his hair, and his voice would have been soft, and he would have stopped by the store on the way home to get him his favorite ice cream. But he wasn’t. He would have listened too Peter as he told him everything, ever patient. He would have hugged him close, and said: “I’m proud of you”. He would have helped Peter find someone who could help without giving away his secret. Hell, he would have flown to Wakanda and back for Peter. But he wasn’t. 

So instead, Peter curled up on his side, tucked around his pillow so he didn’t have to feel his chest, alone. And he cried himself to sleep. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that was shorter, but it felt like a good place to leave it. I’m averaging about 15 pages a chapter, but texting tends to take up less space, so we’ll see how it goes. Peter’s life is full of ups and downs, and like every teenager, he’s not quite stable enough to handle it well. Our boy will get help soon, though. Next chapter contains a minor reveal that’s not really a reveal bc it was in the tags, as well finally solidifying this internship. Poor Tony’s got so much on his plate, though, how is he going to account for that and trying to care for a wayward Spider-Man?  
> Constructive criticism is appreciated, but if you could maybe pair it with things I’m doing well, so my sensitive heart doesn’t go all stupid and try to use invasive thoughts to get to me? Thanks, that’s lovely. Y’all are great. Have a good night/day/whatever time it is. 
> 
> 6/17 Also I get on a flight in like less than 10 hours and likely won't have wifi but I'll definitely spend as much time as I can while I'm gone writing, and the next chapter is already gonna be extra long for your reading pleasure when I get back(so like two weeks). Sorry about that.


	4. Involvement of Internships

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “The whole deal here is you allowing us our lives because we save yours time and time again. And while some of us would like to just stop doing so and allow you to reap the consequences, neither of us want that to happen. But if you continually ignore our basic rights as sentient beings, we’ll be forced to stop saving your lives. Because we refuse to sign our very livelihoods over to you only to be allowed to continue doing something you want us to do.”  
> The Senate was silent for a minute, not a soul in there daring to believe he had threatened what they thought he had. He’d threatened to retire the Avengers entirely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, sorry for the wait. Here's an extra long chapter to make up for that, it took the majority of my time off to complete, and while there are some parts I'm not really chill with, I don't have a beta reader, and I'm really tired(I just got back yesterday and go straight back to work tomorrow.)  
> I hope y'all enjoy.   
> TRIGGER WARNINGS: Minor depressive episode. Misgendering, non-explicit sexual assault, flashbacks, past physical and sexual abuse(separate characters)

The meetup ended up being scheduled for the following Tuesday. Tony would pick the kids up from school and have Happy pick up the guardians. The feel of it was immensely surreal, and Peter went through the day in a bit of a daze. It would only be the second time meeting the man as Peter Parker, boy who’d impressed genius Tony Stark, instead of Spider-Man, a snarky confident kid who saved people and knew(or at least pretended) he belonged in the company of people like War Machine and Iron Man. 

Even Harley was excited, and Peter had yet to see the boy excited by anything. He was still quiet, but he had a small smile on his face, and laughed more easily. Ned had been instantly taken by him( _ not in the gay way… maybe a little in the gay way. With how Ned was grinning at Harley as he snickered, maybe there was something going on there. He’d ask later. _ )

MJ was slowly coming around to being friends with a pair of semi famous dorks and a geek. She’d stopped getting as defensive about things, and her sarcasm held less bite than it did. But sometimes he caught her eyeing him with something along the lines of frustration, maybe edging into the jealous range. He didn’t know what it was about, nor could he address it, because every time he caught her staring, she’d brush it(him) off instantly or change the subject. She didn’t leave him alone in the hallways anymore, though, not after the incident with Flash and the black eye that she’d pulled him aside before school on Friday to cover with makeup. The look she’d given him then was similar, but she hadn’t asked any questions as to why it was almost gone, or anything along those lines. Perhaps she knew he wouldn’t answer those just as much as she wouldn’t answer his. 

They’d scheduled a movie day on Sunday, all going around to Ned’s place to introduce the other two to the Star Wars Franchise properly, and he and Ned had argued whether the prequels or sequels were better for starting on, until MJ had gotten up and placed a random one into the player. It had been the second sequel, so of course he then had to go back and put in the first, but it ended the argument. 

The whole thing had been weird, at first. 

Ned had sat on the right side of the couch, and Peter had taken the ground in front of him so the other two could have the two seats. Harley had sat like a normal person before he’d unconsciously reverted back to the proper way of sitting, bringing his feet up to sit cross-legged on the couch so he could balance the huge popcorn bowl better. MJ had faced the other two with her back to the armrest, legs bent, but after Harley shifted, she’d shoved her feet under his leg, prompting him to jump and complain about her cold toes. Her resulting “deal with it” made Ned and Peter laugh. 

She’d sniffed at Episode IV, calling it mediocre, which made both Ned and Peter give offended gasps. 

“I’ll have you know, I’ll have you know.” Ned began, shaking his finger, trying to find the words. “That was totally unacceptable, I can’t believe you’ve spilt lipstick in my valentino bag.” Peter deadpanned, causing all of them to laugh. Even Ned gave a chuckle, despite his still shaking finger. He hadn’t caught her little smirk after she’d said it, completely messing with them. 

“I hate it. We should watch another.” Harley smirked, making Ned pout. 

“Stopppp! You’ll make me drop my croissant.” He whined. MJ almost laughed at that one, which Peter considered a success.

They started watching the second one, stopping only for pizza midway, but MJ had stopped them before they resumed the movie. 

“I have something to tell you guys.” The saying always sent shivers down Peter’s spine, and he fixed MJ with a worried look. It was almost as bad as ‘We need to talk’, or ‘You should probably sit down for this’.

“What, are you okay?” MJ fixed him with a glare, before continuing. 

“I’m fine. It’s just that I’m… I’m not a girl.” Peter gaped, before thinking back to all the times she’d fixed him with that look. The frustration, the jealousy. He’d felt that early on in his transition, seeing all the trans guys online. 

“Alright.” Ned spoke first, and Peter hastened to get his brain back online. He could freak out later. 

“Do you have a different name you want to be called? And what are your pronouns?” He asked, facing them fully. Harley just nodded, not asking anything. 

“MJ is fine, it’s… it’s me. And they/them. Just don’t ever call me Michelle.” Sh-THEY shuddered. Peter nodded, scooting over to them. 

“Nice to meet you, MJ, my good pal. My name is Peter, and my pronouns are he/him.” He held out his hand for them to shake, grinning when they cracked a smile.

“You absolute doofus.” They shook his hand, shaking their head and smiling at the same time. 

“I’m Ned. My pronouns are he/him, and my bronouns are dude/bro. Do you have preferred bronouns?” Ned asked, reaching across Harley to offer his hand as well. MJ laughed again, shaking his hand as well. Peter still hadn’t let go of their other one, so both of their hands were captured, arms crossing each other.

“I myself am partial to buddy/pal, but dude and bro are also acceptable.” Their eyes were shiny, and Peter could feel the secondhand relief coming off of them in waves. They must not have come out to anyone before, if it was this strong. He was glad to be one of those people. 

“My name is Harley. My pronouns are he/him.” Harley hesitated, not able to shake their hand, as both were already occupied. “Do you have anyone we should avoid using your pronouns with? So as not to out you?” 

Peter smiled in spite of the increasing tension. Harley, random cis boy from Tennessee, had done his homework. 

MJ frowned, looking down. 

"My parents, I guess, if you ever end up meeting them. The teachers? I don't care about anyone else. Flash might attempt to give me shit if he's even smart enough to understand what it means, but I'd honestly like to see him try."

"It's different, when they target you for that. More personal." Peter said quietly, not wanting to discourage, but wanting to warn. 

"Then I'll get more 'personal' with him. He'll learn." They smirked, and the boys were suddenly slightly scared for the boy. MJ was a being of pure, unadulterated power, and the sky was their limit when it came to taking Flash down a notch. 

The rest of the night went smoothly. The boys messed up once or twice, but quickly corrected themselves and apologised. They refused to linger longer than that, not wanting to make a big deal out of it. At the end of the night, after Harley had left, Peter pulled MJ aside. 

“Hey, I was just wondering if you had any interest in binding?” 

Their smile was small, but genuine. “Yeah, man. I was actually going to ask you about that.” Peter returned the smile, relieved. That would have ended awkwardly otherwise. “Cool, cool. I mean, we need to figure out your size, but I’m thinking probably a medium. We should take measurements, just in case, and I’ll show you the best types and places to get them from.” 

They laughed a little, punching his shoulder lightly. “Thanks, loser.”

“No problem.” 

 

It was that night, when he’d gotten home to May sitting on the couch, that he realized he hadn’t talked to her properly since their discussion. He plopped down on the couch next to her smiling when she looked up.

“Hey, Peter. How was the movie marathon?” She asked, smiling. 

“It was good! MJ and Harley are really cool, even if they don’t like Star Wars as much as me and Ned. I’m glad I’m friends with them.” 

“Guess Stark was good for something after all, huh?” She was teasing, but it took her grinning at his very passionate objections for him to realize that. “Alright, alright. Settle down, young padawan. I was just watching his speech to the Senate. You want to join?”

“Oh, I hadn’t realized that was on. That was on Friday, wasn’t it?” 

May nodded, simply unpausing it. 

“-Mr. Stark, I don’t think you understand how serious this needs to be-” Some greasy senator was saying, smiling an extremely fake smile and talking down to the man. 

“No, I don’t think YOU understand, senator. Look. I’ve wheedled, I’ve appealed, I’ve beaten my way around the bush enough. Here’s the facts, hard and true. Me and my team are people. We are people, and until you treat us as such with the same rights to a trial and appeal process, as well as acknowledgement and protections for special cases and minors, we are not signing this. We refuse to sign our basic human rights away, I refuse to sign our basic human rights away, because that’s all we are. Human.”

“With all due respect, Mr. Stark, you may be human, but at least half of your team are not-” Senator Ross. God, Peter hated the man. He was so slimy, so condescending in everything Peter had seen of him.

“You want to get into the semantics of what makes us human? Fine. I’m changing my answer then. We are all sentient beings with intelligence levels that are equal to or greater than that of the average human. I do not care if not everyone on my team has strictly ‘human’ DNA, which is a f-----d up way of classifying someone as human, by the way, because many people, including but not limited to intersex people and those with birth disorders, have genetic issues that would disqualify them as human. We are all capable of making educated decisions and working as a team against threats that you cannot otherwise protect yourself from, short of blowing up a whole damn city, or might I remind you of the fiasco of 2012 where the government attempted to bomb New York, a population of 8.4 million people, and I saved you from that while also stopping an alien invasion with my team?” 

“He’s got a point. We’d all be dead right now if it were up to these guys.” Aunt May hummed nonchalantly. She wasn’t freaked out at all by the prospect, but then again, she was from New York. 

“The whole deal here is you allowing us our lives because we save yours time and time again. And while some of us would like to just stop doing so and allow you to reap the consequences, neither of us want that to happen. But if you continually ignore our basic rights as  _ sentient beings _ , we’ll be forced to stop saving your lives. Because we refuse to sign our very livelihoods over to you only to be  _ allowed _ to continue doing something you want us to do.”

The Senate was silent for a minute, not a soul in there daring to believe he had threatened what they thought he had. He’d threatened to retire the Avengers entirely. 

Peter was glued to the screen, jaw dropped. 

“Are you sure working for him is in your best interest, Peter? It seems like your job might potentially be a bit… unstable.” Aunt May reasoned, looking between the pissed, sleep-deprived billionaire on the screen to her relatively young nephew. 

“To be fair…” Peter’s voice broke, and he cleared his throat before continuing. “To be fair, I’m working for Mr. Stark, at Stark Industries, not Iron Man, or the Avengers team. Still, if their hand does get forced like that… I can’t imagine it would help Mr. Stark. He might die of heart problems due to stress, or something like that.” 

May looked at him sideways. “I forgot he had heart problems.”

“A lot of people do. They forget he had a reactor implanted in his chest for years too, and what that would do for him. He must have chronic pain, at the very least. Skin doesn’t fuse to metal, after all.” Peter stopped talking, suddenly feeling sick to the stomach. The mere thought of having a constant open wound in his chest… He hadn’t even thought about it, but it freaked him out, in the same way that something with a ton of holes or nail clippers did. They rubbed his senses the wrong way, made his skin crawl. 

May was looking at him softly when he pulled himself out of his thoughts, running his fist on his chest.

“You’ve got so much empathy, Peter. I don’t know how, but you do. Never let go of that.” She hugged him then, and the talking in the background faded away. He hugged her back, as tightly as he dared. She was taller than him, and she weighed more, but in that moment she just seemed fragile. Entirely too fragile. 

 

The moment broke when Tony’s voice rang out once again.

“No, you’re right about that fact. I cannot control my teammates. But I can convince them. And if it comes between, say, a week of skipping work or losing the job completely? Then I trust them to make the logical choice. I will negotiate, I will allow for compromise on anything. Anything but the basic civil and human- _ sentient _ \- rights of those put under the Accords.” 

“Skipping a week of work? What are you saying, Mr. Stark? Choose your words wisely.”

“I’m saying you need us, but you cannot and will not enslave us. You act like that’s still an option, but I’m giving you the options right now. Either you acknowledge and allow for the basic rights of superheroes to be on par with those of civilians, or soldiers when specifically on emergency-level assignments, or you lose us. Completely and totally. We will operate where we see fit and are acknowledged, and that is it. I agreed that heroes needed to be held accountable for their actions. I agreed that they shouldn’t get to disappear after the battle is over. And that was the point of the Accords, to hold them accountable, to prevent rash decisions that could cause major or unnecessary destruction. Never to change the game completely, never to give complete control of people over to the government. And if it takes showing you what will happen in our absence to see that? Then so be it.” 

May turned off the TV. Peter blinked, clearing his eyesight from where it had started going grey. 

“I don’t know, Petey. I just. He’s right, of course, but a time without heroes? You know Mr. Delmar, who runs the deli? He got saved by Spider-Man. Told me all about how the man even went back inside to save his cat. His cat! We can’t lose them. But if we have to, to make others see just how lucky we are? I suppose I’d survive. I mean, we can’t rely on them all the time, right?”

“I don’t know, May. I just don’t know.” Peter replied, shaking his head. He didn’t ever want to stop being Spider-Man, he didn’t want to abandon the city. 

“Well. I’m heading to bed. It’s been a long day. I’ll see you tomorrow morning?” She kissed his head, waiting for his nod of confirmation before getting up and heading to her bedroom. He waited until she was pretty much asleep before putting on the mask and climbing outside to sit on the fire escape. He pulled the hood up, hiding most of it from view, in case someone walked by. 

“Hello, Spider-Man.” The suit-lady said. She was bland, unfeeling. Not like FRIDAY. 

“Hey, suit lady. Hey, do you have a name?”

“I was not given a name, no.”

“So you would be fine with me naming you?” 

“Well, it would most likely be more comfortable for you than calling me Suit Lady.”

“Okay. Okay. Hmm. What about… no. Maybe, no, they’d literally kill me. How about Karen?” 

“Karen would be acceptable.” There’s a pleased tone to her voice that was totally fake, but it made Peter feel better anyways. 

“Cool. Karen, Mr. Stark said he programmed his number into the suit. Was that only for calls, or am I able to send him a message?” 

“It is a mobile phone, so we would be able to send him text messages.”

“Okay, can you write this down and send it to him?” Peter bit his lip, worrying the skin with his teeth.

“Very well. What should the message say?”

“I- hmm. Tell him we should probably have another team meeting to discuss what exactly he implied to the Senate.”

“Okay. I have taken the liberty of fixing your syntax and removing unnecessary words. The message reads as follows: We will likely need another meeting to discuss what you told the Senate.”

“I dunno, that was kinda impersonal. Maybe… keep it more on the informal side, something like ‘We’ll need another meeting to discuss your speech to the Senate, won’t we?’”

“That would work. Would you like me to send that to Mr. Stark?”

“What, what I just said?”

“Yes. In quotes, ‘We’ll need another meeting to discuss your speech to the Senate, won’t we?’ Out of quotes.” The UI sounded so serious with the questioning inflection that Peter laughed a bit. 

“Yeah, sure. Send that to him.” 

“The message has been sent.” 

“Cool.” Peter sat in silence for a bit, hugging his knees and listening to the sounds of the city. It was too late to go out now, getting close to midnight with school in the morning, but Peter couldn’t bring himself to go inside and sleep, either. He wasn’t restless. That required energy. He wasn’t tired, either, though. That required a lack of energy. He was simply… there. Weightless, like he could hang on a thread without it breaking. 

 

“Spider-Man, Mr. Stark has replied. His message reads as follows: ‘Yeah. Isn’t it past your bedtime, kid? We’ll discuss in the morning. Sleep tight, Underoos. -TS’”

That broke the spell. Peter laughed, and suddenly there was weight in the world again. His limbs were the heaviest they’d been since the bite. 

“He’s right, of course. Good night, Karen.”

“Goodnight, Spider-Man.” It was getting easier to pretend the warmth in her voice was real. 

 

Monday was a bit of a haze. It was one of his down days, and he barely talked all day. The mood the night before should have predicted it, but he hadn’t been paying attention. The others noticed his mood, but didn’t comment on it. He straight up ignored Flash when he came by to bother him at lunch, not even looking at him. He wasn’t sure he could actually hear what the boy said. Peter was aware the boy was speaking, and he could sense the sound down to the minute changes in the vibration of the air, but he didn’t register any actual words being spoken, and eventually the boy left with a huff. That made the other three grin, so Peter smiled. He got home around four, having not taken the first train due to it being too crowded. He couldn’t stand the thought of touching people. 

May had taken one look at him and sat him down on the couch, making hot cocoa. She’d put his feet up and he’d curled into a ball, resting his chin on his knees. She sat opposite him, sneaking her feet under his in the only contact that he could stand, her way of supporting. May had always been better on these days, Ben more the touchy-feely type when it came to comforting, but Peter would still give anything for Ben to be there, on his back on the ground just to be able to stick his feet in the pile too. 

It wasn’t a fix, nothing ever was, but it was something. It grounded him, made time move more slowly. He smiled at his aunt when she pressed the mug into his hands. The cocoa warmed him, and he sank into his seat as he drank it. May simply sat, reading her book or browsing on her phone. She was there to talk if he wanted to, but he rarely did. So they sat together, barely touching, and he felt closer to her then than he had anyone all day. 

  
  


Tuesday came, and with it came the excitement he had lacked the previous day. He was going to the  _ Avengers Tower _ to see Mr. Stark and  _ Pepper Potts _ . This was literally the best day of his life(so far at least. He was well aware that he would be working for them, and thus would have more opportunities to talk to them then, which was  _ awesome! _ ) 

May smiled and kissed him on the head as he made his way out the door, and he practically skipped down the street to the subway station, grinning to himself all the while. He noticed the men waiting for the same train as him further down the platform, a group of three, somewhat scraggly, as if they didn’t have jobs(well, legal ones, anyways.) He didn’t think anything of it at the time, used to seeing all sorts of characters in Queens. 

The train arrived, and they got into the car before him. Right as he went to step onto the train, his Spidey sense went wild, stopping him in his tracks. However, he couldn’t miss this train unless he wanted to be late for school, and being late meant detention, which meant missing or messing with the meeting that Mr. Stark had set up and wasting his time. So Peter hesitantly stepped onto the train, looking around furtively. 

He’d barely made it through the doors before they closed and the train was off, clattering and clanging and zooming down the dark tunnel. He was trapped in whatever situation was going down. 

He couldn’t identify the source of the threat at first, the train car being crowded enough that blatantly looking around at people would be suspicious. Between that and the train car being extremely loud as usual, he didn’t notice what was going down at the end of the train car for a solid two minutes. It was the smell that eventually told him something was wrong. The smell of salt, of tears, and the slightest hint of blood. He turned his head and locked eyes with a lady. She couldn’t have been older than 25, maybe an intern, maybe a student. She was dressed professionally, slacks and a blouse. There were three men pressed in around her, hands in… indecent places, with one large one covering her mouth. And she had tears streaming down her face, running into the man’s large hand and trailing down her jaw or neck. He immediately stood up, trying to make his way down the aisle. He would have shouted, but personal experience taught him that may not have been the best way to derail the situation, not when he could more effectively and quietly do so. It may seem silly or stupid, but drawing attention to the victim as it happened was not ideal. _ Hands down his sides, voice in his ear _ \- no. He refused. He could not get caught up in old memories when someone needed his help. 

Three stops. Seven minutes. He could do this. 

He was six feet away when he spoke, just loudly enough to be heard over the roar of the train. 

“I’d stop that, if I were you.”

The man closest stiffened, turning his head, before relaxing when he saw Peter, all of 5’5”. 

“Go away, little girl, if you know what’s good for you.”

“I’m not a girl. And you’ll stop, now, if you know what’s good for you.” Peter had a moment of insight and pulled out his phone, starting to record. He angled the camera upwards, finding the crook’s face, before turning and peaking around the large man to try to grab a shot of the other two. The man saw what he was doing and let go of the woman, turning around. 

He squared up, blocking the woman and the other two men from view, but he’d removed the hand from her mouth, and she immediately began speaking, “Their names are Matthew Donnivic, Forrest Gordon, and James Cha-” There was a snarl and a smack, and the woman fell silent.  _ The only voice in the dark, sharp and menacing, threatening the others if he denied him- _

Peter shook his head, speaking louder this time. 

“Let. Her. Go.” The man made a grab at Peter’s phone, but he dodged out of the way, almost stumbling as the train quickly decelerated, coming up on the next stop. 

Two stops to go. 5 minutes. 

He stepped closer again, yelling this time, and nearly shoving his phone in the dude’s face. 

“LET HER GO.” The other passengers on the train shuffled restlessly, not used to violence. The bystander effect. Ignore it, someone else will help. Peter shoved aside the uncharacteristic disgust he felt for them, focusing on the task of getting a clear shot while also dodging the man. 

The doors opened, and some people quickly left, only to be replaced by more people. 

The noise and movement were enough to distract him, and Peter was quickly grabbed by the neck and lifted, and Peter had to fight with all his might against the instinct to bring both hands to the one around his neck. 

He kept the phone held away from them, wincing as he felt something tear when he wrenched his arm in the wrong direction to avoid the man’s lunge. The other hand was on the arm holding him in the air, simply holding it. He couldn’t focus on getting free and keeping the phone away at the same time, so he just used the arm as leverage to support the other one in its flailing. 

“What’s going on here?” Both of them froze, the man turning to look at what Peter assumed was a policeman. He couldn’t turn his head, due to his neck being held in place and all. Everything was starting to look kinda funny anyways, the colors popping out a bit brighter.

“Let the girl go, now.” Peter coughed, trying to rasp out something along the lines of “Not a girl” but he didn’t have the air in his lungs or the use of his vocal cords, so the effort failed miserably. 

Nevertheless, he was slowly lowered to the ground, the hand removed from his throat before curling up in a fist. Peter backed away, falling back onto his ass as he coughed, massaging his throat and trying to stop the burning. 

“Not a girl.” He rasped out as soon as he could, interrupting whatever the guard had to say. The woman had been mover over to a bench on the side and was talking with a female officer, the man’s accomplices apparently having run for it. 

The officer turned to him, raising an eyebrow, before sighing. 

“Look, kid, whatever. I’m just gonna need you to come into the station to answer some questions for me, okay?” 

“Can do you one better,” Peter tried to take a deep breath, but just ended up coughing again. “Video proof.”

“Well, a statement would also be good, and we need to get that neck of yours seen to. I’m Officer Morales, I’ll be handling it.”

The man was in handcuffs and being led off the train by a security guard, so Peter turned to the officer, neck already feeling somewhat better.

“How long is this going to take? I’ve got to go to school, and I’ll get in trouble if I miss my presentation. Not that this isn’t serious or anything, but couldn’t I send you the video now and come give a statement after school? Because then you have the most compelling evidence already, and I’m only a witness-”

The officer took another look at the kid, confused. “I’m gonna stop you right there, kid. You aren’t just a witness, not with the way you got involved. You’re also a victim. Did you not see the man? Holding you up by the neck?”

Peter winced, remembering that. He held his phone out in selfie angle, lifting his chin up to capture proof of the bruises. He took pictures from either side, knowing the bruises would be gone by the next morning. 

“Evidence.” He clarified when he noticed the man looking. “And I don’t suppose that this will only take an hour or so? I’m pressing charges, regardless if she is or not. Speaking of her, is she okay?”

“She’s a lot better than she would be if you hadn’t stepped in, son. Come on, we need to get to the station.” He patted the boy on the shoulder, sighing. He was an odd one, that was for certain. “We’ll need you to contact a parent or guardian, too, given that you’re a minor.”

“Aww, man. It’s her day off.” Peter whined, mostly to himself. “Okay, okay. I’ll just need to contact a few people, tell them something happened and I might not be able to deal with this in time to get to the uhh… presentation.” 

He pulled his phone out, pausing. “Hey, which station are we going to, anyways?”

“The one near Forest Hills.” The officer provided. “And just so you know, I’m supposed to take your phone as evidence and to prevent you from tampering or spreading the video, so don’t go on any social media or anything, and don’t share the evidence, okay?”

Peter nodded, texting his aunt. 

 

**Peter:** Hey Aunt May, so um. I kinda need you to come down to the station?

**Aunt May:** OH MY GOD PETER ARE YOU OK WHAT HAPPENED WHERE ARE YOU

**Peter:** I’m okay, I’m okay. I kinda got in this rude guy’s way, and well. He didn’t take to kindly to it? I’ll explain more when you get there. It’s the one near forest hill

**Aunt May:** IM ON MY WAY

**Peter:** Sorry, I didn’t mean to stress you out on your day off. I’m not there yet, but I’ll be there soon. 

 

He sighed, opening up the group chat. 

**Peter:** Hey guys not to freak you out or anything but idk if I’m going to be able to make the meeting today. Something came up and I’m currently heading to the police station.

**Harley:** does this have anything to do with yesterday

**Peter:** No no, it’s nothing like that. I can’t really explain right now, but I'll do it later.

**Tony Stark:** kid wtf what happened yesterday why are you going to the police station -TS

**Peter:** I’ll tell you both about it when and if I can get to the meeting. If not I’ll just explain over the chat when I get home. 

  
  


**Peter:** Hey are you going to be in class today

**Ned:** I HAVE NEVER MISSED A CLASS

**Ned:** But also yeah sure dude what’s up

**MJ:** medium rare

**Peter:** I need y’all to take notes and grab my work for me

**Harley:** we can do that

**Ned:** Does this have anything to do with yesterday? Bc like I am concerNed

**MJ:** That wasn’t even a vine that was just a bad pun. But also same.

**Harley:** Nah, he’s at the police station, apparently it’s a separate thing

**Ned:** Damn these separate group chats. I want to be in a chat with Tony Stark

**MJ:** No you don’t, not when you have to explain to Tony Stark that you’re at the police station

**Ned:** o shit, you right

**Ned:** rip Peter, press f to pay respects

**Ned:** this group chat with Tony Stark thing really isn’t working out for him, is it. 

**Harley:** f and also no, no it’s not

**MJ:** f 

**Peter:** I’m alive, also wow 

**Peter:** ttyl, gotta hand in my phone. It’s evidence

**Ned:** what even is your life, my dude

 

Peter sighed and handed his phone over as they got out of the police car, missing a text from Tony. Stark. He was to wait in a special room until Aunt May and a lawyer came, mostly because he was a minor that they were likely having trouble identifying(with Peter not being his legal name, and all. He’d refused to give another name, and they hadn’t pressed.)

They got everything sorted out at the station in time for lunch, Aunt May holding him in a tearfully proud hug for a long time after the officer told her what Peter had done and showed her the video, explaining that less than seven percent of reported cases go through due to lack of evidence. Peter’s actions had ensured that this would be one of them. 

“I don’t suppose you’ll have funding for a lawyer, ma’am? Even if it is technically a criminal case, it is advised you get one, and there are several charities that would help-”

“That won’t be necessary.” Happy had stepped through the doors, smiling slightly at Peter. “Personal interest from Ms. Potts and Mr. Stark, Stark Industries will cover any and all costs related to the case, including those of the young lady.”

Peter sighed in relief, but May frowned, opening her mouth after a moment. “Happy, was it? I don’t suppose you could inform me as to how Mr. Stark and Ms. Potts  _ found out _ about the case when it’s only just been decided?”

Happy’s smile faltered, and Peter wasn’t aware of just how rare that smile would be. “I believe that’s best discussed with them, Ms. Parker.” The ‘Ms.’ made Peter wince, and he felt May subtly flinch beside him. Peter stepped in.

“Look, Mr. Happy, do you think you could give me a ride to school? I don’t think Aunt May is all too keen on me taking the subway, after what just happened. We can discuss that on the ride there?” 

Happy sighed in annoyance, running a hand through his hair. “I’m not a cab service, buddy. I don’t do driving people around anymore.” But one look between the boy and May, who was slowly becoming a force to be reckoned with, and his eyes softened just enough for Peter to notice. “But I suppose after what you did today, you deserve a break. Come on, I’ll drive your aunt to Stark Industries afterwards, so she can speak with the big bosses themselves. That is, if she wants to.” 

He was quick to add the last part, given the look in May Parker’s eye, but she calmed down. Peter was worried about her. It wasn’t like her to get angry, so while that reaction was pretty small, it was definitely along the lines of her being pissed. 

As they left the station, Peter slipped under her arm, hugging her side. 

“Thanks for being such a good sport about this. I’m sorry I made you deal with it, I just couldn’t stand there and do nothing, you know?” She’d been there when Skip had… done what he had, she and Ben had supported him and made sure Skip would never be a problem in their lives again. She knew what it must mean to him, surely. Hopefully she wouldn’t lecture him too much, with that in mind.

She nearly stopped in the middle of the busy sidewalk at his words, but Happy quickly motioned for them to get in the car, looking furtively around, so she ducked into the backseat and immediately pulled Peter into a hug. 

“Peter, I am so so so proud of you. You were wonderful, and you handled it so well. I’m glad I get to be one of the people that raised you, and I’m absolutely certain that after Ben was done tracking down the other two men and putting the fear of God into them, he’d be immensely proud too. You’re so much like him, Peter. You’ll grow up to be a great man one day.” At that, Peter felt his eyes burning, and he sniffed, hiding his face in May’s shoulder. Nearly eight months of no crying and now, twice in two days? What was wrong with him? He pushed the intrusive thoughts away for the moment, focusing on her words. She was proud. She wasn’t mad, at least not at him. 

She thought he was like Ben, and that was the highest praise he could hope to receive. And maybe this time, he’d done something to deserve it, to prove he was living up to his uncle’s memory. He hadn’t even really used his powers, other than avoiding the man’s attempts to hit him and take the phone. He could do things, save people, even when he wasn’t Spider-Man. He hadn’t been sure, but now he was. Maybe that means his friends wouldn’t be disappointed if they found out that he was the one behind the mask. Not that that would ever happen, he was keeping that secret close and guarding it well, but it was nice to think about. 

  
  


Peter was escorted into the office by Happy, who mentioned a notice sent by Tony Stark and handed over the official police excuse document, getting him into his last classes scot free. He waved cheerily into Harley’s class as he passed, watching the expressions flicker across his face before he’d passed his “window” of opportunity to see Harley’s actual reaction. He laughed inwardly at the pun, grinning as he made his way down the hallway. When he plopped down next to Ned in fourth period robotics, the teacher didn’t even look up, but Ned’s eyes bulged. 

Ned and the others were very full of questions throughout lunch, with Harley taking note of everything important and sending it to Mr. Stark, as Peter’s phone was still at the station being held as evidence. Heading off to PE was mostly peaceful, except for another incident with Flash in the hallway, who backed off almost immediately when he saw the dark purple handprint on Peter’s neck, an indescribable look on his face. People still tried to question him on the internship since he was the only one in their little friend group the vultures hadn’t gotten the story from, but he stuck to it, not providing any details, and they soon backed off, grumbling. 

Liz Allen kept looking at him, though, and that sent a hot flash of giddy excitement through his system. 

He shared conspiring looks to the other two when they headed out, MJ rolling their eyes and smirking, and Ned practically vibrating in place from secondhand excitement. 

“I’ll text you guys and tell you all-” He cut himself off, frowning. “Well, Harley will do it, and I’ll give him running commentary to give to you.” 

“Fair enough, dude. If nothing else, you can always call us from your Aunt’s phone, like when we were little.” Ned shrugged, smiling. Peter nodded in agreement.

“Yeah, I might do that. We’ll see.” 

 

He and Harley had agreed to meet in the bathroom they had used to escape the school before heading out, which was evidently a mistake, as by the time they’d gotten to the pickup lane, Mr. Stark’s car had already garnered quite a bit of attention. Fighting through the crowd to grab the doors and slip in pretty quickly was more difficult than expected, but it was much quieter inside the car, for which Peter was grateful. Mr. Stark was sitting in the front seat, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel to the tune of  _ Stairway to Heaven _ . 

“Hey, kids. You want some McFlurries? I just picked them up on the way here, because I figured why not, you know. I had a bit of a sweets craving.” He turned to look at Harley, raising his eye at the fact that he was riding shotgun, before shrugging and glancing back at Peter as best he could through the rear view mirror. 

“Sure, thanks.” Harley grabbed his from the cupholder, passing the other back to Peter.

“Yeah, thank you, Mr. Stark.” Peter stopped himself from rambling by stuffing a bite into his mouth, smiling slightly at the sweetness. He wasn’t one to go out of his way for sweets, mostly due to lack of access, but they were nice when the occasion presented itself. He made sure to keep his chin down and pulling up the color of his shirt, trying to block the sight of the handprint from Mr. Stark’s gaze as much as possible, not that the man was looking. He was mostly making quiet conversation with Harley, letting Peter sit quietly in the back with the backpacks and ice cream.

The ride went quickly, and soon they were gliding down a customized ramp that hadn’t been there before into his private garage under the Avengers Tower. Peter gaped at the other cars, both because of the relative cost and the sheer number of them. They were worth more than his life, that was for sure. Mr. Stark told the two to leave their bags in the car, that Happy would retrieve them later. They were led to the elevator in the corner as soon as Mr. Stark got Peter to stop staring at everything, including the Batmobile that apparently he’d built “because he could, it wasn’t even that great. So uninspired.” 

The biggest shock(to Harley, and Peter remembered last minute that he should be shocked too) was FRIDAY, who immediately greeted them by name upon entrance to the elevator. 

“Uh, hi there?” Peter replied, suddenly terrified that the UI would somehow be able to tell that he was Spider-Man. 

“It’s alright, just my UI, FRIDAY. She runs the building, and monitors security and everything. Makes sure no mischief is afoot. Ensures that whenever I have to make lawsuits against former employees, I have all the data I need to ensure their asses get handed to them and fired, respectively.” At the reference, Peter looked down, smiling softly. 

“I never really got the chance to thank you for that-”

“Good, kid, because you don’t need to and you shouldn’t. I should be thanking YOU for opening my eyes. Now,” He paused as he looked at Peter straight on for the first time that day. “What the hell.”

“...what?” Peter asked nervously, checking his outfit for glowing green signs that read “I AM SPIDER-MAN”, but didn’t find any. He swallowed nervously, wincing at the pain in his throat. 

“That. That right there. That level of damage, damn, kid, how are you even talking?” 

Oh.

“It’s worse than it looks?” Peter tried, his voice slightly scratchy when he raised it at the end for the question. “I also heal relatively fast, like one time I broke my arm and the doctors said it would take like a month to take the cast off but I was fine to do it after like 3 weeks. It’s not like it was a bad break or anything, just a tiny chip off of the bone, but you know.” 

“Have you seen someone about it? Did the police get you taken care of? School nurse? God, kid, you’re cramping my style.” Mr. Stark complained, walking forward to tilt Peter’s head up, examining the bruising closer. His words made Peter guilty, though, and between that and the panic of him finding out Peter was Spider-Man, he flinched away, raising his hands instinctively in a defensive gesture. 

Mr. Stark immediately stopped, raising his own hands and frowning at Peter. Before anything more could come of the moment, Harley stepped in, projecting his movements as he wrapped a careful arm around Peter’s shoulders. 

“We made sure Peter saw the nurse at school during lunch.” He told Mr. Stark, outright lying to his face. He turned to Peter, rubbing his arm slowly where it was getting cold due to the excessive cooling systems. “You good, Pete?”

“Yeah. Sorry.” Peter faked a smile, lowering his hands, but not quite able to relax his shoulders. 

“Right. Whatever. Okay then, well remember the part where I told the both of you to stay out of trouble? That didn’t seem like staying out of trouble to me. Did I not make myself clear enough, did you want extra incentive, what’s going on?” Mr. Stark brushed off the incident like it was water down the side of his very slick tower, frowning at Peter again. There was disappointment there, Peter was sure there was, and he fell back into the defensive side.  _ I can do this. I need to do this. I can’t be a bystander. There’s nothing worse than sitting by when you could do something to help someone else. _

“There’s nothing worse than sitting by and watching someone suffer when you could do something to help, instead. She was being assaulted, it was-”  _ sexual assault _ , but the words couldn’t leave his mouth. “There were three of them, I couldn’t not do something. Only 13 in 1000 cases make it to conviction, if I could help her- I needed to. It’s not like I go looking for it, I’m not Spider-Man, but I also can’t stand aside.”

Mr. Stark started raising his hands again, this time in a woah, there type gesture. “Hey now, no need to bust my balls, Michael Scott, I ain’t about to lecture you, but I do have to say that no one is going to judge you for having limits. Filming as you did was smart and gutsy, took some serious balls, but it put you in harm’s way. No one wants that, and it’s important to care for your own safety as well.”

_ Right, that’s absolutely what you were going to say. You totally weren’t going to lecture me on not staying out of the way, not letting someone else take care of it. _ Peter thought bitterly, clenching his jaw and looking down. “I’m not- I’m not always like this. I just can’t stand- when they think they’re  _ entitled _ to someone else-” He broke off with a huff, his throat failing him in ways that had nothing to do with the injury and everything to do with the panic clawing around it, the sudden need to press himself into the upper corner, so he could be sure, confirm that none of the sides were closing in. But he couldn’t, because he was Peter Parker right now, not Spider-Man. So he refrained, simply locking his arms tight around himself. 

"That's fair, kid. Like I said, everybody has their limits. Different context, but you can only do so much. Just, try to avoid taking up vigilantism. It's hard work, it's thankless, and it's certainly not good for you or those around you. Just, be careful, okay? I guess that's all I can really ask." Mr. Stark started awkwardly when he realized that Peter wasn't going to say anything else. He looked like he felt out of place, uncomfortable, but also less shielded. He wasn't quite hiding as much, something that Peter seemed to be slowly able to start detecting, between his time with the man as Spider-Man, and his time with the man as Peter Parker. That calmed Peter down more than anything, and the only thing that was easily amiss when the elevator doors opened to the same floor that they’d discussed the Accords on was the weird tension the elevator carried. 

Harley had removed his arm from around Peter’s shoulders, as he felt he didn’t need it anymore, and all three of them had turned to face the doors. He’d still positioned himself between the two, though Peter wasn’t entirely certain if that was on purpose or not. It wasn’t like he was going to ask, and Mr. Stark was just doing something with his phone, so he certainly wasn’t paying attention. 

He led the three of them into the room across from the one Peter had entered through the window, into a smaller room that didn’t have any windows, but with a nice holographic display on one wall. Happy and the two maternal figures were there, Happy looking slightly scared, and the other two conversing in clipped tones, making frustrated gestures that were cut off as soon as the three boys entered the room. 

“Hey, Pete.” Aunt May smiled at him, patting the seat next to her. She could definitely tell he was unsettled, but Peter went anyways, relaxing slightly when she took his hand in hers and squeezed it. Harley, however, had somewhat of the opposite reaction upon seeing his mom. He plopped himself down next to her, not bothering to speak to her. She didn’t seem to want to talk to him, either. Mr. Stark surveyed the scene, frowning, before sitting to the right side of the end of the table. That put him a seat away from Harley and diagonal one from Peter, and he seemed to fidget before speaking. 

“What’s wrong with him? What, did you do that? Is that why you’re so willing to put him in harm’s way with this lunatic?” Harley’s mom immediately opened up the conversation upon seeing Peter’s neck. She sneered over at May, and rage overtook Peter for a second. He stood, snarling. 

“May would NEVER hurt me. This came from my own inability to stay away from trouble, and is in NO WAY her fault. How DARE you.” May tried to tug him back into his seat, murmuring softly to him, but he was focused on the woman across from them. She’d had the gall to be offended by his outburst, as if he was in the wrong for defending his family. He finally sat after staring her down, but the feeling remained. 

“You should teach him better manners, and to respect his elders.” She sneered over at May, poking her nose in the air with a toxic sense of superiority.

“Actually, Peter respects his elders just fine. You just attacked and attempted to undermine one of them, is all. It’s all in the phrasing. Respect  _ his _ elders. Not all elders.” Pepper Potts had entered the premises, and the look that took over Mr. Stark’s face at the sight of her primly disapproving in the doorway was one Peter didn’t think he’d ever forget. It reminded him too much of Ben, of the pure soft love that he would exhibit whenever May got home. Peter looked away, swallowing reflexively, and squeezing May’s hand gently. 

“Took the words straight out of my mouth, sweetheart. And you say I’m not a good influence on you.” He grinned, standing and pulling out her chair for her. “Ladies and gentlemen, the big boss has arrived.” 

Ms. Potts rolled her eyes, but Peter didn’t miss her returning smile, or how she’d run her hand down his arm as she passed him. The tension in the room was almost thick enough to taste, and yet looking at them made Peter think everything would be okay. They’d figured it out, after all. 

“Before we start, we will be discussing matters of the highest secrecy, and thus I will need your assurance that you will not be spreading compromising details about any sort of compromising information about Stark Industries, Tony Stark or myself, or your childrens’ positions here, regardless of whether you accept the position or not. This here is our standard non-disclosure form, with a few additions made to account for your particular circumstances. Please be aware that failure to sign and/or uphold the document will render your individual relationship with this company null, as well as put you in a position facing our best lawyers. You likely saw how well that goes over with the recent court case?” Pepper Potts in full business mode was a force to be reckoned with, and it had Peter and May in a bit of awe. She passed the four of them rather thick packets, listing off the pages that they would need to print and sign their names. Not even Harley’s mom dared to talk back quite yet, though her mouth seemed to permanently be in a snarl. Harley finished his packet within a minute, only slightly scanning the terms of the agreement, with Peter close behind him. 

May took her time scanning the document, but seemed to find no trouble with it, and Harley’s mom tried to fully read it, got a few pages in, and gave up, signing where directed. 

“Will we get to keep a copy of these, just to be sure in the future that our current interactions don’t violate it, or something like that?” Peter asked, wanting to get the time to actually read over the document later. Harley glanced over at him, seemingly catching his drift, and nodded. 

“I’m sure that can be arranged, so long as you do not expose the contents of the non-disclosure to anyone either.” Pepper smiled at him.  _ Holy shit PEPPER POTTS just SMILED AT ME I’m gonna die, MJ is gonna freak, this is the best day of my life- _

His internal freak out was interrupted by a kick in the leg, but both Harley and Mr. Stark were looking suspiciously away and it certainly wasn’t Harley’s mom, so he didn’t know who to glare at. Instead he just looked down, thankful he didn’t really blush after the spider bite. Sure, his cheeks could redden, but they didn’t get very far, some kind of safety measure to ensure he didn’t heat his face too much and be unable to cool it. It also meant he couldn’t sweat anymore, however. The spider bite really was saving his life in more ways than one, huh. 

They all passed their documents back after a few questions from the adults(“Would breaking the contract make my son’s contract void as well?” “Absolutely not, it would still be in action, and it’s not like it would matter, considering the level of legal consequences you would face…”)

“Very well. Now before any questions concerning the position are considered, Tony here will give you a basic run-down of the job description, which should get any of the basic questions out of the way.” Pepper gestured to Mr. Stark, whom she’d been quietly speaking with as the others finished with the nondisclosures. Happy was watching the entire thing with a bored eye, glaring whenever the woman sitting next to him made a derisive remark or sly question. 

Mr. Stark stood, circling around to the holographic wall behind May and Peter and tapping it to life. 

“Let’s put it this way. Ms. Parker, Ms. Keener, your kids are pretty close to geniuses. They have a lot of untapped potential, and through a training and internship directly overseen by me, myself, and I, I believe we could help your children reach that potential. They would be in part-time positions, paid $60 an hour once in their full positions, and would have full insurance and employee benefits, including but not limited to medical, dental, and optical insurance. As they are not entirely out typical recruits, we have opted to allow for special circumstances as well, such as contribution to college funds, letters of recommendation, and the like. The schedules would be flexible, but always after school or on the weekends, almost never interfering with school unless something of rather extreme importance comes up, that of which would be entirely excused as educational opportunities and would detract from their schooling as little as possible.” He paused, not really having anything more to say. He’d definitely had a mask on, something that had put Peter on edge, but he figured it was more for the parents’ benefits than it was for his own. He still didn’t like being lied to, though. 

“What educational opportunities do you see in store that could interrupt the schooling? Just some general examples would be nice.” May asked coolly, raising her hand first. 

“Well, we were planning a retreat to Wakanda for our most skilled employees soon, to study their technology and better learn how exactly a no-pollution system could work in a large, functioning society. The boys would certainly be welcome to join.” Pepper jumped in, smiling again as both boys looked at each other in shock, jaws dropping. 

“Duuuude.” Peter said excitedly, gesturing rather nonsensically at Harley. He meant something along the lines of  _ wakandantechnologyholyshitwoahthatwouldbeawesome _ . 

“Duuuude!” Harley grinned right back at him, flailing in a less dramatic manner. “That would so totally be helpful if we ended up making those lightsabers.” 

“Oh yeah! Mr. Stark, please tell me you haven’t built lightsabers yet, we were gonna do that.” Peter turned to Mr. Stark, who was definitely amused at their reactions. Peter saw him exchange a glance with May, but didn’t care. 

“I did, actually, some time back in the 90’s. Definitely had a different way of going about it than you guys will probably be able to come up with, given the technology at the time, so knock yourselves out. It’ll be a good test. Once you finish your training, of course.” 

“Duuuude.” Peter whispered, awwed. Mr. Stark laughed a bit.

“Watch a lot of Hollywood, huh kid? Anyways, that trip isn’t for another 3 months. You can make two types, a pre-Wakandan one and a post-Wakandan one.” He smirked as Peter shook his arm around in excitement again, before moving on. “Any other questions?”

“What kind of work would they be doing, exactly? I don’t want them messing with dangerous chemicals and blowing themselves up, or giving themselves superpowers via radiation because you aren’t careful with your lab.” The surprisingly thought out question came from Ms. Keener, who had her fingers steepled. Something about Harley talking to Peter, or being excited about inventing, had softened her a little bit. The mention of superpowers had Peter pushing down a laugh. Wouldn’t that be hilarious, having to reveal he was Spider-Man and had superpowers just because he’d gotten  _ more superpowers _ . 

“They would be working on some of our less classified projects to start, just to work them up and see where their specialties lie. Eventually I hope to get their input on some of the equipment I’m designing for the Avengers, due to the quality of the applications they gave, but that is entirely up to them. Other than that, they would soon be some of the leading interns on some of my projects like the clean energy and air one, that debuted a month ago. If either of them shows an aptitude for software, there is a new project I’ve been working on myself, designing an easily accessible holographic interface to help those with disabilities. That project will probably take about a year to be finalized and out to the market. There are several others, but we don’t really have time to go over all of the assets that Stark Industries is covering. In any and all of their projects they will almost exclusively be working with design, not the hardware, especially not before their training is done.” Mr. Stark smiled charmingly, probably hoping to distract the woman from the fact that he’d mentioned the Avengers in there from the way her face had practically turned green when she’d heard it. It distracted Peter, at least, if only because he didn’t think he’d actually seen a smile so fake before. Mr. Stark was clearly off his game if even Peter could tell. 

“I don’t want my son in any way associated with the Avengers. That’s an unnecessary danger and puts us at risk.” Peter was surprised to see May nodding along hesitantly. Mr. Stark nodded, looking between the boys. 

“The current cover story with the media completely eliminates the contact with me outside of the announcement, giving them the privacy of not being involved directly with the media. They’re just regular interns to the rest of the world, only those of us in this room and assumedly their friend knows differently.” He began, but was cut off.

“No, no. I don’t mind him working with you publicly, I just don’t want him featured in one of those cliche “abducted because the Avengers know them” stories. My kid should at least get recognition for his work if I have to put up with this.”  _ More like you want bragging rights to your friends. _ Peter thought snidely, not liking how she’d been treating the whole thing. 

“Even if we were to publicly recognize your son as the personal intern to Tony Stark, as per your non-disclosure agreement that you just signed, you would not be able to breathe a word about it. The image and publicity of the two would be controlled entirely by and in Stark Industries.” Pepper cut in, clearly thinking the same thing Peter had. Ms. Keener deflated a little bit, not entirely happy about that. 

“Still, I would like some recognition for what he does, even if it’s only: This boy was hand chosen as one of the smartest in the nation, to work under Tony Stark directly.” There was a bit of defensiveness in her tone, and Peter felt a bit bad. Sure, she was awful, but even an awful parent should be allowed to be proud of their kids. Either way, her talking about Harley’s position would likely put them both in danger, maybe even the rest of their family. Peter wasn’t sure if there was a rest of the family, but if there was, they would be. 

Mr. Stark and Ms. Potts shared a look, talking with their eyes as Peter had often seen Ben and May doing. Mr. Stark nodded once, then clapped his hands. “Why don’t you three discuss what exactly you would like to be exposed to the public and what you would like to be kept private while I take the boys to the lab, show them their new workplace? That is, of course, unless you have any more questions regarding their work here?” Both women shook their heads, and Mr. Stark nodded in return. 

“This way, boys. I don’t suppose you could brief me on your ideas for the lightsaber on the way?” Tony Stark wanted to hear their ideas. Peter knew that he was literally being hired for it, but it would definitely take some getting used to. The two boys spent the walk to the lab(which was, coincidentally, the floor below the conference rooms) explaining their working thesis and how it wouldn’t work, and then kept bouncing ideas off of each other, working through the different prototypes they could develop with lightning speed. Mr. Stark gave his input a few times, but he spent most of the walk simply listening, a strange look on his face. They were nearly there when a figure rounded the corner, inside the lab sector that was restricted to the more science-minded Avengers. That could only mean one thing. 

“Holy shit, that’s  _ Bruce Banner!! _ ” Peter whispered to Harley, who nudged him in return. The other boy stood ramrod straight, stars practically impaled in his eyes. Guess bioengineering and nuclear physics were his fields of study. That made sense, the boy didn’t have the same proficiency to hardware that Peter did, or Ned’s skill at hacking, even if he was still quite science-minded and able to keep up when they talked about it. Ooh, it was revenge time for that one time on the group chat. “Mr. Stark, could you introduce us to Dr. Banner? Harley is a huge fan.” 

The Glare of Death was worth it when Mr. Stark saw his face and chuckled, agreeing. 

“Hey, Brucie-pie! I’ve got someone who wants to meet you.” Mr. Stark strode forward, a grin on his face, and Harley and Peter quickly followed behind, Peter grinning and Harley looking nervous as all hell. Mr. Stark waved impatiently at the two of them trailing behind him, and Peter couldn't help but bounce on his heels when he came to stand next to the man. This was BRUCE BANNER. And yeah, he'd seen him over a week ago, for a little bit, but the fanboy in him hadn't exactly gone away overnight. 

"Hey buddy, so you know how the kid from last week was a big fan? Well, I found two more. Picked them up off the street just to say hello." Harley was too busy trying not to glare at Mr. Stark, so Peter introduced himself, holding out his hand to shake. 

"Hello Dr. Banner. Your work on gamma radiation is stellar, I read up on it when I met Spider-Man. This is Harley. We're Mr. Stark's new interns. I don't know how much you've heard about that." Mr. Stark twitched, turning to Peter. 

"Umm. Kid. Do the words non-disclosure mean anything to you? It didn't even take an hour for you to forget that? Literally just giving out all of your personal information. Wow." 

"Well, that's a better cover story than 'you picked us up off the street.'" Harley snarked, rolling his eyes. Mr. Stark just grinned at him. "I know you've probably heard it all before, but your work with radiation was revolutionary, and your research into bioengineering was extraordinary as well. I can only imagine what we could do if we combined your theory on precancerous cells with the vibranium nanobot technology that was recently released in Wakanda." Harley gushed, for a minute every bit the 14-year old that he was. 

Dr. Banner looked like he didn't know what to do for a second, before he pulled Mr. Stark aside, whispering: "Is this a new pet project, or something? Operation Raise Banner's Self Esteem? Because it won't get me into your bed, you know that. No matter how chill Pepper is, I'm not."

"What? No, Teddy Bear, I'm never going to bring kids into that. And if there was such an op, I wouldn’t do it to just get into your bed. Come on, they were telling the truth. Peter can’t keep a secret for the life of him, apparently.” Peter really wished he didn’t have super hearing. He did not want to imagine either of the two men in bed, regardless of who they were with. As it was, he just looking away and trying not to blush, again. Harley was giving him a look that said he wasn’t doing very well, unfortunately. He wished the spider had gone away with any such ability to blush, but the other repercussions of that made him shudder, so he tried not to think about it. 

“Tony, seriously? Do you realize you really aren’t in any position to take on two mentees? You’re way too busy to be trying to teach two kids on top of that, and expecting that isn’t fair on you or them.”  Bruce argued. “You’re already trying to take care of that spider dude, and you’ve got to deal with so many other things. You’re going to stretch yourself too thin.”

“Please, I’ve dealt with worse. It’ll be fine. Besides, these kids are special, Brucie. They’re good, they’ve got so much potential, and they’ve got to be at least as smart as I was when I was a kid. What they need is the opportunity to prove it. I can give them that. Not everyone grew up with millions backing their education.” Mr. Stark was definitely trying to appeal to Dr. Banner’s empathetic side, in all the time Peter had known him he was pretty sure he would never have counted that as a valid argument if it was someone else’s health and wellbeing in question. The fact that he chose that route instead of logic-based arguments concerned Peter. He didn’t want to be a burden.

“That’s what the Maria Stark foundation was for, to give an opportunity to those who needed it. Sooner or later I’m going to walk in and find you’ve converted one of the floors into a five-star homeless shelter, and another into a school and living space for ‘kids adopted by Tony Stark’.” Dr. Banner was frustrated, and Peter could tell. He threw his hands up in the air, not noticing Mr. Stark flinch. 

“First of all, I haven’t adopted anyone-” 

“Really? Because you aren’t acting like it. I know you want kids, Tony, but this is getting out of hand. You made a multimillion-dollar suit for a kid you’ve never met, you don’t even know his name, and now you’re pretty much taking over these kids’ schooling. Help me out, Tony, because I don’t know what to think.” 

“Just. Come watch the aptitude tests. I was gonna test them, see how well they did in different categories. You should see how they do, what they do. It’ll be great, scout’s honor. Besides, if they really were just random kids, don’t you think they would have interfered or been scared off by now? You haven’t exactly been subtle.” With that, both men glanced their way, and Harley and Peter looked in opposite directions, totally obvious. “They’re really obvious, but come on, they’ve just watched you get upset and not done anything. They’re smarter than they look-”

“Okay, okay. Calm down, I get it. I’ll do it. Maybe I can help out with this, make it so you don’t have so much on your plate.” Mr. Stark rolled his eyes, but relaxed. 

“Ok, kids. The marital spat is over, you’ve been granted at least temporary access to the shared Stark-Banner household, so you’d better be convincing. I’m letting Brucie here come watch your assessments, to prove a point, win a bet, whatever, so don’t let me down, or you’re out for a job.” Peter’s anxiety got kicked up several notches at that, but Harley just rolled his eyes. 

Dr. Banner must have noticed Peter’s plight, maybe from his look at Tony, and Peter could tell the moment he saw the (slightly yellowing) handprint on Peter’s neck. He froze, hands instinctively clenched into fists. His eyes were wide, and he was pretty obviously controlling his breathing. 

“Kid.” He was a little green around the edges, and Peter shifted back, alarmed. “Who did that to you.”

Peter swallowed, feeling a bit ashamed. He’d obviously set off one of Dr. Banner’s triggers, though he didn’t know how. 

“It was this dude on the subway. He and his friends were… well, they wouldn’t leave this one woman alone, so I stepped in and got evidence and everything, to give to the cops. He didn’t really like it, but the cops got there before he could do any real damage.” Peter explained, trying to downplay it. 

“It’s true, Bruce. I can pull up the footage for you, I’ve been thorough in making sure there weren’t any other factors. It’s okay, the dude’s behind bars.” Mr. Stark had completely switched gears, but at his word, Dr. Banner relaxed a bit, unclenching one fist as he twisted the other one, grinding it into the meat of his thigh unconsciously. 

“Right. Right. Sorry, kid. It’s just. God, that’s not okay, you’re just a kid.” Mr. Stark touched his arm gently, and he stopped digging into his thigh, looking down with a grimace. 

“Sorry, Dr. Banner. I didn’t mean to freak you out. I just get myself into situations like that a lot, I didn’t mean to freak you out.” Peter stepped forward hesitantly, wanting to comfort the scientist, but not really knowing how. 

“Don’t apologize, kid, christ. You didn’t do anything wrong. You said the guy’s behind bars?” He addressed Mr. Stark, but Peter answered. 

“Well, he’s being held, right now, but the trial is happening soon, and between me and the lady, we’re going to make sure him and his goons don’t see the light of day for quite a long time.”

Something about the mention of the trial calmed him down, and he went pretty fully human again(though Peter wasn’t sure that the Hulk wasn’t human, nobody had ever really tested his DNA, now had they? Plus from what he’d heard and seen, the Hulk had started developing something of a separate and sentient conscience, even if he wasn’t exactly the genius that Bruce Banner was. It was all rumors, though, as Dr. Banner had refused to speak out on the subject.) 

“Let’s get this show on the road now, shall we? The women will be down soon, and I want to get the tests over with before then.” Mr. Stark clapped his hands together, heading off further into the building. Dr. Banner sent a wry look at the other two as they all followed the impatient billionaire. 

The lab they entered was huge, bigger than two of the science classrooms at Midtown put together, but it was… sparse. There wasn’t the huge amounts of advanced equipment to play with lying about, and there were several desks and large counters, but the white surfaces were all uncovered. There was an odd glass coating over everything from the ceiling to the floors, and random floor-to-ceiling panels of it made up what would be support columns and walls. Right in the middle of the room was a rather extensive desk that wrapped halfway around the user. It didn’t have any screens or computers, but there were a few tools scattered about, as well as what looked like a dismantled puzzle cube. 

Then Mr. Stark clapped, whistling, and the place came to life. The counters shifted and moved, holograms appearing above them where the normal computer screen would be, and several whirring noises started up, seeming to come from Dum-E, the only known robot of Mr. Stark, though he’d mentioned he had several. Three robots, one Dum-E and two that seemed newer, but definitely similar, hurried over and started what could only be described as fretting over Mr. Stark. 

“Guys, guys, we have company. C’mon, you’re making me look bad.” He whined, patting their heads all the same. Peter smiled, vaguely reminded of when he’d visit his aunt and uncle, before everything had happened. Whenever they came home, their cats would swarm them, asking for food and pets. “Ok, kids, these are my bots, Dum-E, Butterfingers, and U.” 

“Nice to meet you!” Peter stuck his hand out to shake, and the bots all seemed to stare at it, and then at him. The moment passed, though, and U rolled up and shook his hand, before backing up and letting the others do the same. Butterfingers tried next, but couldn’t quite get a grip on his hands, so just grabbed onto Dum-E’s claw when he moved forward to do the same, moving up and down with him. Peter wasn’t sure, but he thought he saw Mr. Stark’s eyes shine a bit more than normal. 

“Alright, alright. Break it up, boys. Time to get to work. Dum-E, go clean the screens, no blenders allowed. Butterfingers, supervision. Doesn’t matter what on, just make sure whatever it is doesn’t get into trouble or I’ll turn you into a toaster. U, go run calibration tests on the upgrades I made last night, I want a full report on those as well as any hiccups you run into. FRIDAY, help him?” With the tasks delegated, he turned back to the boys. “Well, now, let’s get started, shall we?”

 

* * *

 

Somewhere, in the depths of New York, three men were making their way to the drop point. Their demonstration and field testing had been a success, enough to take down that of the not-so-local vigilante, Spider-Man. As an added bonus, they now had enough money to support their activities for a long while. The big boss was pleased, even if there was an issue that he was still working out of his wings. They were running low on supplies, though, and that was going to be an issue. They’d have to get another shipment, and without the big boss on active duty, that was going to be a pain. 

Damn, why did they sign on with that Vulture lunatic?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that there may be some things(Mr. Stark's reaction to things, for example) that would seem out of character. Keep in mind that this is told from a biased perspective, and this is what Peter perceives/interprets. You'd get a completely different story from Tony himself.   
> Enby MJ!!!!! Tbh this is a concept that came before FFH(no spoilers coming from here or anything, but I have so many mixed opinions about that movie) but I immediately fell in love with it. So here you go! Idk if I'll be able to catch up on writing and finish up the next chapter in time for Thursday next week, but we'll see. If I can, I'll post it, but if I can't, well. I won't I guess, lmao.

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, so I write/work on this regularly, but I'm also a slow as hell typer, so uh, I'm thinking 2-3 weeks between updates? On the bright side, they'll be pretty long ones, I'll make sure of that. This isn't really the type of fic that does well with short updates.
> 
> Also, there will be some stretches from reality, such as Peter and Harly literally going to the same school, them being the only ones to actually complete the puzzle, whatever. Look. It's my MCU and if I want to make the general populace dumb as hell, I can. It's for the plot, guys(and gals, and my fair enby pals).


End file.
